Jen Lunde: Should We Bag Use of Plastic Bags?
Since the widespread adoption of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bags in the mid 1980s, plastic shopping bags have become a common staple of any retail experience. Nearly one trillion disposable plastic bags are used worldwide each year with visible environmental impacts, such as increased marine litter and endangerment of marine species among others. To combat these effects, some cities, states, and countries have placed bans or taxes on plastic bags. However, controversy emerges when considering the impacts of the potential alternatives to plastic bags; maybe banning plastic bags isn’t the most effective solution to the growing plastic problem.
Existing Policies
Though many countries including Denmark, Rwanda, South Africa, Ireland, and China have chosen to enforce nation-wide regulatory policies on plastic bag use, the United States has chosen to leave decisions to local and state governments. Consequently, more than 130 US cities and counties have implemented anti-plastic bag legislation. These policies range from total elimination, or bag bans, to plastic bag fees of 5-10 cents on each plastic bag used by customers. For example, as of June 2009, in the Outer Banks, NC, retail stores are prohibited from distributing plastic bags to customers and can only supply paper bags if they are made of recycled content. In Washington D.C., a 5 cent tax on both plastic and paper bags was enacted in 2010 to promote the use of reusable shopping bags. Thus far, no state governments have successfully applied a statewide charge or ban.
Some retailers have even chosen to enact their own policies; for example, furniture giant Ikea has started charging customers 5 cents per bag in an effort to incentivize reusable bag use. At the same time, they’ve reduced the price of their reusable bags from 99 cents to 59 cents to encourage the use of reusable bags. When this initiative was tested in the chain’s U.K. stores, the company saw a 95 percent reduction in bag consumption in only eight months.
Controversy Surrounding Bag Bans
Though increasingly popular, bag bans are not universally supported and have recently become an extremely controversial topic. Environmentalists argue that plastic bags must be eliminated to reduce their lethal environmental impact, whereas those in opposition, including small business owners, plastic bag manufacturers and some consumers, believe that there is no better option with regards to environmental and economic impact.
Contrary to what some might believe, the primary reason for implementing shopping bag regulations or bans is not due to their contribution to litter in the United States. A 2013 report found that HDPE plastic bags comprised only 0.6% of visible litter in the US. Rather, advocates for bag bans and related taxes argue that the continued use and prevalence of plastic bags can be harmful and even fatal to marine life.
More than one million birds and 100,000 marine mammals and turtles die annually from ingesting or getting entangled in plastic bags, according to the Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation. Even after ingestion, the plastic will eventually re-enter the environment after the organism dies and begins decaying as HDPE bags can take up to 1,000 years to completely break down. In this process, the plastic will be broken down into smaller and smaller particles that collect toxins like PCBs and DDT. These particles can result in toxic concentrations in smaller organisms and also contribute to marine litter, such as the Northern Pacific Gyre. Other drivers vary regionally; for example, in Kenya, water collected in plastic bags can lead to malaria outbreaks, and in Texas, concerns about cattle choking on bags provide a basis of support for bag regulations.
However, not everyone shares the belief that bag bans and taxes are the best route for greening the environment and reducing our carbon footprint. Those opposing bag bans believe that this could increase costs for consumers and businesses and that alternative bags (i.e. paper or reusable plastic) may leave a larger carbon footprint on the environment than traditional HDPE plastic bags.
There are a number of economic impacts associated with bag bans. A case study assessing potential bag regulatory policy in California found that the average weekly direct cost of switching to reusable bags would around $2. It’s also important to note that consumers often tend to forget their reusable bags and are then forced to buy more from the store, thus increasing the cost to customers. Retailers may also suffer from banning plastic bags. Retailers would be forced to change bagging systems to accommodate the switch and spending more time bagging items. For some, reusable bags increase security risk, theft risk, and liability risk as well. Reusable bags make it easier to conceal weapons, steal goods, and increase the chances of contamination and consequent legal action against retailers. A 2012 study by the National Center for Policy Analysis found that banning plastic bags drives consumers to stores outside the bag ban region, which would negatively impact retail sales as well as employment within the ban region.
The environmental impact of bag bans is also controversial. A 2011 study evaluating the environmental impact of various types of supermarket bags found that paper bags have a more detrimental effect on the environment than plastic in categories including global warming potential, abiotic depletion, acidification, eutrophication, human toxicity, and more. The study also found that consumers would have to reuse a cotton (reusable) bag more than 100 times before it had less of an environmental impact than the disposable plastic bag it would be replacing. This is due to the significant difference in energy and raw materials needed to manufacture the different bags; the relatively small amounts of energy and materials needed to produce plastic bags results in less environmental impact than counterparts.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that HDPE plastic bags have a negative environmental impact, but there remains controversy as to whether or not there is a better environmental and economical option. Though many cities and states have enacted local policy banning or taxing plastic bags, perhaps it’s time to revisit the factors underlying this decision.
The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, or ISRI, supports the concept of a competitive market-based system for the trade of recyclable materials including paper and plastic bags. Such a system would promote the economic role of paper and plastic bags in the continuous life-cycle of these products while reducing the negative environmental impacts associated with disposal and littering of plastic bags. In ISRS’s proposed model, retailers would provide plastic bag recycling bins, which would allow the recycling industry to flourish, yielding economic and environmental benefits.
David Comment:
At the beginning of 2015, Dallas implemented a bag ban fairly identical to Washington DC’s ban; five cents on all reusable bags, 4.5 cents going to the government and .5 cents going back to the store to help fund switching the bagging system, increased security, etc. that you mentioned could be an issue for retailers.
An interesting economic point came up when I was talking with my parents about the plastic bag ban. They believe that the bag ban is a regressive tax, and I am pretty sure I agree with them. First, since the fee is flat and per bag, and lower-income citizens can be assumed to use more of their income buying food, it can be assumed that they are spending more of their income on this fee than those from upper-income brackets. Second, and more interestingly, it is a lot more convenient for those with personal cars to have reusable bags around than someone who has to take the bus/carpooling/walking. You can’t forget to your reusable bags if they live in your trunk; if you have to make an effort to remember to bring bags to work and carry around bags all day, there is an incentive to just forget it and take the fee. Just an interesting thought on the equity of bag bans that you may not have considered!
Sunny comment:
I think this blog post really highlights the issues and controversies of the plastic bag ban debate. While it’s easy to say that eliminating plastic bags will improve certain aspects of the environment, further research should be conducted on how bans impact other aspects of the environment. At my local grocery stores, there have been plastic bag recycling measures made available, but there has not been a large push from companies to promote these initiatives. It does not seem like there would be economic incentives for large grocery store corporations to promote these measures. I think that there should be a consumer driven demand in order for companies to continue sponsoring bag recycling. There needs to be a way to internalize (within the cost of the plastic bags) the negative externalities plastic bags create. In the future, I believe that we will see similar debates regarding plastic water bottles and take-out packaging.
Brigitte comment:
I have always assumed that the elimination of plastic bags was solely a positive change, and so I have supported plastic bag bans or fees in the past. However, I had never thought of it from an economic standpoint before, and seeing the bag fee as a regressive tax is making me rethink my opinion. While I agree with providing incentives for people to use reusable bags, I do not think it should affect poorer consumers more than others. From this perspective, sponsored bag recycling is an attractive alternative. It eliminates the inequity issue and limits the amount of waste from the bags in the future. However, I might argue that while this is a step in the right direction, the potential environmental impact of plastic bags warrants a larger deterrent from using them. Recycling, while definitely an improvement, does nothing to encourage consumers to get reusable bags instead. Many consumers also won’t bother to recycle their bags, and so they will still contribute to waste. Possibly a way to combat this would be to provide a discount (off of the original price) for using a reusable bag. If a small monetary incentive were provided for recycling the plastic bags as well, it would give people the option to save money by either using a reusable bag or consistently recycling their plastic ones.
Kate comment:
Paper versus plastic is the perennial question at a supermarket. The most interesting part I thought was the amount to which plastic bags contribute to visible litter. I believe that many people think their choice of one or two plastic bags doesn’t make a difference in the grand scheme of things. The problem is that everyone thinks that. While it doesn’t directly affect an individual life, the accumulation causes severe issues now and for future generations. Ridding the world of plastic bags would definitely increase costs to businesses and consumers now forced to buy more expensive recyclable bags. However, at this point it is necessary to change the public way of thinking. While you state that consumers forget their bags, this is probably true. However, could it be because there is no incentive for consumers to remember their bags, knowing that plastic is always a backup option? I found David’s comment about the regressive tax particularly interesting, though, and was not something I had considered before. That would most definitely be something to consider before implementing such a policy.
References
The Downfall of the Plastic Bag: A Global Picture (accessed April 1, 2015); available from http://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/downfall-plastic-bag-global-picture.html
Plastic Bag Bans Are Spreading in the United States (accessed April 5, 2015); available from http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/plastic-bag-bans-spreading-united-states.html
List of Retail Bag Policies – U.S.A. (accessed April 5, 2015); available from http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/retailbags/pages/list_USA.htm#NorthCarolina
Ikea ‘Bag The Plastic Bag’ (accessed April 5, 2015); available from http://ctgreenscene.typepad.com/ct_green_scene/files/final_plastic_bag_faq.pdf
An Evaluation of the Effects of California’s Proposed Plastic Bag Ban (accessed March 31, 2015); available from http://reason.org/files/california_plastic_bag_ban.pdf
New Bans on Plastic Bags May Help Protect Marine Life (accessed March 31, 2015); available from http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5565
Plastic Bags Are Killing Us (accessed April 1, 2015); available from http://www.salon.com/2007/08/10/plastic_bags/
Top Ten Facts About Plastic Bags in Our Oceans (accessed April 1, 2015); available from http://www.environmentmassachusetts.org/sites/environment/files/reports/Bag%20Ban%20Fact%20Sheet%20_0.pdf
The Downfall of the Plastic Bag: A Global Picture (accessed April 1, 2015); available from http://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/downfall-plastic-bag-global-picture.html
Learn The Facts (accessed April 1, 2015); available from http://www.bagtheban.com/learn-the-facts
An Evaluation of the Effects of California’s Proposed Plastic Bag Ban (accessed March 31, 2015); available from http://reason.org/files/california_plastic_bag_ban.pdf
Ibid.
A Survey on the Economic Effects of Los Angeles County’s Plastic Bag Ban (accessed April 5, 2015); available from http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/st340.pdf
Bans on Plastic Bags Harm the Environment (accessed April 1, 2015); available from http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303822204577468790467880880
Ibid.
ISRI Policy on Bans and Fees for Recyclable Paper and Plastic Bags (accessed April 5, 2015); available from http://www.isri.org/docs/default-source/policy-position-statements/bans-and-fees-for-recyclable-paper-and-plastic-bags-board.pdf?sfvrsn=10
Recyclers Say Plastic Bag Bans Should Be Trashed (accessed April 5, 2015); available from http://green.tmcnet.com/topics/green/articles/2013/08/05/348324-recyclers-say-plastic-bag-bans-should-be-trashed.htm