Does Single-Use Plastic Bag Ban Work? | One Small Step | NowThis

Does Single-Use Plastic Bag Ban Work? As of March, 1st 2020, single-use plastic bags are officially banned in New York State.  Well, kind of…

New York’s ban aims to reduce litter and help protect wildlife in the Empire State, where more than 23 billion plastic bags are used each year.

But with several exceptions for certain plastic bags and research on the unintended environmental consequences of these bans, are plastic bag bans sustainable?

In this One Small Step, Lucy explores the environmental benefits to plastic bag bans, and sits down with Dr. Rebecca Taylor, a researcher and economist who has studied the unintended consequences of bag bans, to find out more about what this ban could really mean.

#plasticbagban #sustainability #singleuse #ClimateChange #Environment #OneSmallStep

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[Mussikkienkeli]

Target stores in my state actually give you a .5¢ credit for every reusable bag you use. Which is very encouraging to use the reusable bags

[leiaorgana]

Why cant people bring their own bags? I do always have one in my handbag.

[fredflintstone]

Answer is yes. What do you think people did before the 1960s?

[korazy]

I started carrying my own cup, straws and reusable bags. It isn't a lot of work to keep them in your purse or your car.

[kurlykurlz]

I just came back from Mexico City and I was told it’s against the law to sell or give plastic bags in markets or even malls. I was also told they might stop selling balloons 😳

[epbrown]

My country (new zealand) has banned plastic bags for almost a year now.. its not hard america, adapt!!

[asthmatictuna]

If you wanted to illustrate the complexity of the issue and recommend reusable bags, you could have illustrated how many times you'd have to use one to beat the outgoing plastic ones, rather than just compare paper to plastic.

[arizonamonarch]

So, those orange bags they were handing out to all who would take one....what are they made of? Are they biodegradable? What's their carbon footprint? What are they made of? It takes a lot of water to make paper bags. How much water did it take to make the orange bags?

[TH-ludu]

What's crazy is the amount of litter that goes down when instituting plastic bans. It implies that people randomly toss plastic bags on the ground after grocery shopping. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE.

[cathykirwan]

I recently read using cloth bags is not a good choice. We would have to reuse each over a thousand times to justify the water and other resources required to produce one bag. All this information makes it so hard which to use! Is there a study which takes into account all bag choices?

[vickyjansen]

Another thing to make a story about is having too many reusable bags. I've had to say no because I have a closet full of them. People give them for free a lot of the time. A lot of times they're not reusable.

[mikegraham]

Reusable bags have to be used 150 times before they break even with plastic. (They use 150x the energy to make)

[unknownuser]

You don't have to buy garbage bags people. Use seperate bins and containers for for waste and wash them regularly. I haven't used a plastic bag for garbage in years. We did it centuries before plastic and we can do it again

[jayrenolds]

This stuff goes back and forth.
80's lest use plastic and paper bags.
90s: lets only use plastic bags and save a tree.
00's bring your own reusable bag
10's lets use paper bags again.
20''s lets ban plastic bags.

[gillianbc]

In our supermarkets (UK), they got rid of the plastic bags at the checkouts, but still had aisles full of garbage bags, freezer bags, sandwich bags and a lot of the vegetables, bread etc was still in plastic bags. They seem to have missed what the ban actually meant

[amandamccallum]

My bread in a single use plastic, the mayo, mustard, produce and meat too. The only plastic I reused was the plastic grocery bags lol

[trixiebewitched]

In our state it's an 8¢ fee per paper bag used

[kobe]

$0.05 ain't even worth it. Make it painful! $0.25.

[duckyluver]

We've had a bag fee since I was a kid here in Vancouver...and people still use millions of plastic bags. I'm not convinced that bag fees work. Bag bans yes, bag fees for paper, no.

[SCL]

I use plastic bag for trash. One of my fav plastic bag for trash are thicker reusable plastic bag. I also buy thinner plastic bag for trash too.