Are you for or against plastic shopping bag bans?

[AurumPunzel]

I'm in favor of the ban. They were banned in my city a few years ago and a lot more people bring their own bags now.

Some people won't change & will just buy them, but this is a long-term issue, and the younger generation coming up cares more about the environment. They will be more amenable to this kind of change.

That's the problem with bans. They create unintended consequences, and those consequences will end up making the environment worse, not to mention that most bans don't take into account scientific evidence and LCAs of bags, which all put alternatives high up the GWP scale. Unless reusable bags are properly reused, they end up becoming a waste issue as well, and that's already happened in many cities that have had studies conducted into the effects of ordinances, namely San Francisco and Austin, TX, which was since lifted last year due to a pre-emption by the Texas Supreme Court, which ruled that plastic bags did fall under the scope of the Texas Solid Waste Disposal Act 1989, which pre-empts all bans on containers on the pretence of solid waste management, so cities can no longer ban bags.

 

[belle032]

I don't have a problem with it. I've been using reusable bags for all my shopping for quite awhile now and have never found it bothersome. I really only use plastic bags for picking up after the dog. Don't have an issue with getting rid of plastic straws either TBH. There are so many reusable options.

I always hear complaining about "why are we bothering with plastic bags and straws? There are worse things out there, this is stupid, millennials are ruining the plastic industry, etc, etc etc." My question is why not? What's wrong with wanting to curb unnecessary waste? We have to start somewhere.

 

[pixiedustedme]

That's the problem with bans. They create unintended consequences, and those consequences will end up making the environment worse, not to mention that most bans don't take into account scientific evidence and LCAs of bags, which all put alternatives high up the GWP scale. Unless reusable bags are properly reused, they end up becoming a waste issue as well, and that's already happened in many cities that have had studies conducted into the effects of ordinances, namely San Francisco and Austin, TX, which was since lifted last year due to a pre-emption by the Texas Supreme Court, which ruled that plastic bags did fall under the scope of the Texas Solid Waste Disposal Act 1989, which pre-empts all bans on containers on the pretence of solid waste management, so cities can no longer ban bags.

My point was that it isn't going to be a problem for many more years. When the current generation of young people become the ones in charge, bans on single use plastics will be widespread and widely accepted.

 

[AurumPunzel]

My point was that it isn't going to be a problem for many more years. When the current generation of young people become the ones in charge, bans on single use plastics will be widespread and widely accepted.

But what about their long-term impact in terms of alternatives? And also, what about the ethics of manufacturing reusable bags?

 

[Colleen27]

I'm wondering what people think about disposable diapers. While very convenient, there is no way to reuse them and they are a growing problem in our landfills because they don't biodegrade. I really think the plastic bag ban is only one tiny piece of a much larger conversation needed to reduce the amount of waste we generate that doesn't easily biodegrade.

I think diapers are a tougher issue because water is a limited resource as well, and cloth diapers need to be washed more often and more intensively than cloth grocery bags. We used a mix with my youngest - disposable when we were out and cloth at home - but we live in an area with ample water resources. In places where the water supply relies on drawing down aquifers at unsustainable rates, cloth may actually present a more urgent environmental challenge than disposable.

And yesterday, the NYC mayor has announced he's working on enacting a law against plastic silverware, in a move toward biodegradable utensils instead. I've eaten at a place that gave us disposable wooden forks.

That's one of those false solutions that really bothers me. Biodegradable products, whether paper-based or eco-plastics, aren't really an improvement when most waste goes into landfills where the conditions prevent biodegrading. It sounds good and companies that have switched are more than happy to market their eco-consciousness, but once those biodegradable utensils are wrapped in plastic garbage bags and packed into landfills, they'll outlive us all just as surely as their plastic counterparts will.

Wonder when they'll ban plastic water bottles.

I wish they'd extend our bottle deposit law to cover them. Right now, we have a 10 cent deposit on soda and beer cans and bottles, and you almost never see those thrown away or discarded as litter, but for whatever reason the deposit law doesn't extend to water, energy drinks, etc. so you often see those just tossed out.

 

[AurumPunzel]

I think diapers are a tougher issue because water is a limited resource as well, and cloth diapers need to be washed more often and more intensively than cloth grocery bags. We used a mix with my youngest - disposable when we were out and cloth at home - but we live in an area with ample water resources. In places where the water supply relies on drawing down aquifers at unsustainable rates, cloth may actually present a more urgent environmental challenge than disposable.

This has got me thinking about all the tradeoffs the rise in the reusables culture has. Very often, reusable products require disinfecting and washing, and that uses a lot of water and chemicals, so that too has an adverse environmental impact. Many reusable bags have various issues when it comes to cleaning them, and particularly with those cheap synthetic non-woven cloth bags, they're seldom washed, and often leads to them harbouring foodborne illnesses, which was linked to San Francisco's ordinance and the rise in hospital admissions due to unwashed reusable bags being used to handle raw meat.

 

[tcufrog]

I've found an interesting way to reuse those flimsy plastic shopping bags: knitting with plastic grocery bags. According to the info I've seen online, you make "yarn" out of the bags that you can use to knit. Most of the patterns I've seen are for sturdier shopping bags.

 

[Colleen27]

I've found an interesting way to reuse those flimsy plastic shopping bags: knitting with plastic grocery bags. According to the info I've seen online, you make "yarn" out of the bags that you can use to knit. Most of the patterns I've seen are for sturdier shopping bags.

That's how the sleeping mats for the homeless are made. It takes a LOT of patience to make that "yarn", but the finished product is pretty tough and surprisingly heavy.

 

[tcufrog]

That's how the sleeping mats for the homeless are made. It takes a LOT of patience to make that "yarn", but the finished product is pretty tough and surprisingly heavy.

How many bags does it take to make one mat?

 

[Summer2018]

I’m so torn. I truly believe that plastic is a nightmare for our environment.

I reuse plastic bags for the garbage cans in my bathrooms and bedrooms. At work I use them when my students wet their pants or soil their clothes in school.

Is there a viable alternative for waste disposal especially when it contains bodily fluids?

 

[AurumPunzel]

I've found an interesting way to reuse those flimsy plastic shopping bags: knitting with plastic grocery bags. According to the info I've seen online, you make "yarn" out of the bags that you can use to knit. Most of the patterns I've seen are for sturdier shopping bags.

And there's another point I wanted to make: upcycling potential. When the Disney Stores had the bags with the comic strip design, they were extremely popular with upcyclers due to the use of classic Disney comic strips and the resurrection of the 'rubber hose'-style Mickey and Minnie Mouse character designs, which evoked nostalgia for Walt's heyday. Because the logo was placed in the top left of the bag (as opposed to towards the centre bottom as per the 2008-2010 post-TCP Pixie design, or in the middle as per the latter design), it didn't cause much interruption to the design, so it made the perfect upcycle for art purposes.

I’m so torn. I truly believe that plastic is a nightmare for our environment.

I reuse plastic bags for the garbage cans in my bathrooms and bedrooms. At work I use them when my students wet their pants or soil their clothes in school.

Is there a viable alternative for waste disposal especially when it contains bodily fluids?

Again, plastic bags are a double-edged sword, but at the same time, solving the problem with them is one huge paradox. Especially with that scenario, there really isn't an easy solution. Same goes for other single-use plastics in the medical profession.

 

[Colleen27]

How many bags does it take to make one mat?

I'm not sure, but a quick Google tells me 500-700.

 

[AurumPunzel]

Oh but wait. There's even more. Those studies were for cotton reusable bags. Well I have reusable bags from several stores including four national grocery chains here in the states and guess what. They aren't made out of Cotton. So the 131 figure doesn't apply to them. They're made out of Polypropylene. They only require 11 uses on a per bag basis to be more environmentally friendly. And again taking into account their greater capacity, we're down to 4. Oh and these bags are recyclable when you can no longer use them.

The issue with polypropylene bags, however, is that they're often manufactured so cheaply (usually in China), the build quality of them can massively vary, and unfortunately, a lot of them fall apart before reaching the minimum number of reuses required as per the LCAs, and some actually elevate the minimum number of required reuses to around the 27-104 mark, particularly when taking into account a plastic bag reused multiple times for shopping. To make matters worse, non-woven polypropylene bags shed microplastic fibres over time, and when disposed of, they can emit even more harmful gasses and take a lot longer to degrade than polyethylene. In Kenya, their draconian bag ban has led to many vendors adopting those types of bags - often mimicking the banned bags, and they're quickly becoming an environmental issue. The Disney Store's 99¢ reusable bags have the same problem, often ripping apart prematurely to the extent that they're now becoming the new single-use bag, and that problem is also plaguing the Disney Parks' new RPET $1-2 reusable bags, which are even worse for degradability, since PET is often impervious to degradation, and that links to the same issues carelessly-discarded plastic bottles are causing, which is why the issue of plastic bottles are often tackled with refundable deposit systems, such as the popular German Pfand system which has resulted in a huge reduction in dumped plastic bottles.

 

[Floridaman999]

I don't use the plastic bags at Walmart, Meijer or Target, but I do always grab an extra bag or two when I visit Menards. It seems they use a much higher quality bag that is thicker and more resilient and they work well for when I need something like that every now and again.

 

[AurumPunzel]

I don't use the plastic bags at Walmart, Meijer or Target, but I do always grab an extra bag or two when I visit Menards. It seems they use a much higher quality bag that is thicker and more resilient and they work well for when I need something like that every now and again.

When I was in New York City last year and the year before, I've noticed that the quality of plastic bags vary from store to store, and of the bags I ended up with during my two vacations there, the Disney Store's bags were the best, with Forever 21's and Journeys' (including Underground and Kidz) being second and third, respectively. The worst plastic bags in terms of quality I ended up with were from Macy's (since replaced with California-compliant loop-handled bags, possibly in anticipation of the NY statewide ban possibly allowing such bags) and the various supermarkets/bodegas. This is why I lamented the Disney Store's move so much, because the replacement reusable bags are such poor quality, not to mention looking rather drab, compared to the plastic bags they had before, which had such cute designs on them, that I saved every single one I got when I was in NYC.

 

[RamblingMad]

I do most of my grocery shopping at Costco, which means I'm using empty boxes. These end up in my recycle. However, when I do have to make a grocery store run, I don't always remember to bring my reusable bags, or I don't have enough.

After seeing that whale have so much plastic removed from it, I really should avoid plastic bags.

 

[paisleys]

I'm for the ban. Since I first moved out of my parent's home 30 years ago, I started using large canvas bags for groceries for the sole reason to get my groceries into the house and me out of the cold in one fell swoop! Canvas doesn't break and holds a lot. I have a large family now and it's amazing how much five canvas bags can hold. They easily fold into one to make a small bundle, which I toss back into my trunk after use so I never forget them. I wash them once a month or so and they last forever. It's kind of shocking how little the plastic bags Publix uses hold and they also break easily so it takes a lot for a single order. I've probably saved hundreds of thousands of bags in the past 30 years! I highly recommend investing in large canvas bags over the cheap reusable colored bags most stores sell. Canvas is pretty much a one time investment.

 

[AurumPunzel]

I'm for the ban. Since I first moved out of my parent's home 30 years ago, I started using large canvas bags for groceries for the sole reason to get my groceries into the house and me out of the cold in one fell swoop! Canvas doesn't break and holds a lot. I have a large family now and it's amazing how much five canvas bags can hold. They easily fold into one to make a small bundle, which I toss back into my trunk after use so I never forget them. I wash them once a month or so and they last forever. It's kind of shocking how little the plastic bags Publix uses hold and they also break easily so it takes a lot for a single order. I've probably saved hundreds of thousands of bags in the past 30 years! I highly recommend investing in large canvas bags over the cheap reusable colored bags most stores sell. Canvas is pretty much a one time investment.

If anything (and yes, this may seem like it's a change-of-heart given my opposition to bans), bans should only ban low quality plastic bags and continue to allow high quality ones, much like California's, as a compromise, but backed up with a fee in addition to paper, since this would reduce the so-called 'ecoLoophole', where one Rhode Island community had to tighten their ordinance to prevent the same type of thicker ban-compliant bags as those that are already widespread in California and many other cities with more lax ordinances, since the ecoLoop-type bags (made by Papier-Mettler in Germany, a major packaging manufacturer) used by CVS and various retailers were still being given away for free despite the ban, yet the ban had a flaw in not having a fee for those thicker bags as well.

 

[Minniesgal]

I am massively anti recycling as to me it encourages continuation of single use with people thinking they are doing something good but in fact recycling creates massive pollution.

I am all for reuse and not using disposable things.

I am against single use plastics but we need to be careful what we replace them with. Some people are going to paper bags which is actually as bad. Paper has a larger environmental footprint than plastic.

It is all about buying things that are long term use and keeping them.

 

[AurumPunzel]

I am massively anti recycling as to me it encourages continuation of single use with people thinking they are doing something good but in fact recycling creates massive pollution.

I am all for reuse and not using disposable things.

I am against single use plastics but we need to be careful what we replace them with. Some people are going to paper bags which is actually as bad. Paper has a larger environmental footprint than plastic.

It is all about buying things that are long term use and keeping them.

That's a very interesting angle you're taking there, especially with being anti-recycling and also being prudent on what the replacements are. I'm the opposite with recycling (being supportive of it, but at the same time, advocating improvement in recycling regimes and better ways of recycling plastics), but at the same time, I'm pro-plastic bags, anti-ban, and also pro-reuse, because the thing is, they're already the most widely-reused 'single-use' plastic in the world, yet also being an environmental problem in which can already be solved simply by charging for them and educating people on the many ways of reusing them, be it for binliners, cleaning up after your pets, carrying laundry in, gym clothes, swimming gear, and even shopping again, especially if the plastic bag is high quality enough to withstand multiple reuses. However, I definitely agree with the notion that paper bags are bad, and also certain types of reusable bags. The problem with most ordinances is that the seem to favour paper a lot, and if NY's upcoming ban doesn't also include a minimum fee for thicker plastic (assuming that the specs are going to be identical to California's), then it risks the 'ecoLoophole' that Barrington, RI suffered from, where it resulted in the ordinance being tightened, despite failing to introduce a minimum fee for those thicker bags, which should have been done from the onset to prevent some stores that opt for those thicker plastic bags from giving them away for free, which would have solved the problem of them becoming a haphazard free substitute.