Im curious, in your work looking at plastic bags or plastic in general, if there have been any cases of people being irrational actors in the market that just really surprised you or stood out to you. Okay, maybe Im going overboard, but honestly, if it were a small ordeal to get a single-use bag, I could see the inconvenience of that motivating people to bring their reusable bags to the store a whole lot more than a five or ten cent tax. A pound of cotton requires more than 5,000 gallons of water on average, a thirst far greater than that of any vegetable and even most meats. Dr. Taylor, could you tell us a bit about your background and research interests? Now, obviously, there are still benefits of reducing our consumption of plastic. Not a fan of arcade games, I guess. Waste in particular, plastic packaging, how it is used, how it gets discarded. And so this was an unintended consequence of the policy. In fact, they may even feel too awkward to ask for one. Its the type of giving that allows us to plan for future projects and provides us with the consistent funding we need to continue bringing you the climate news that you rely on. Plastic bag bans havent fixed the entire problem where theyve been implemented. All donations doubled for a limited time. ETHAN: After we drill and frack and insert other PG13 sounding term here, we have to actually turn our fossil fuels into polyethylene. 500 billion plastic grocery bags are used worldwide. All of these policies give consumers a little more freedom, but try to nudge them in the right direction through small fees or rewards in the 5 to 15 cent per bag range. So I wont rehash it all today, but if you listen to our episodes on fracking or the Permian Basin or the Haynesville Shale, youll learn a little bit about the villain origin story of plastic bags, and some of the many issues to which they contribute. Heres just one tiny example: Does the paper for paper bags come from a recycled paper mill on Staten Island or a virgin forest in northern Canada? And even if you use the word fee, sometimes people dont like that as well. Cotton tote bags dont fare well either. In addition to being my celebrity couple name with a girl named Polly, polyethylene is a string of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Donate today tohelp keep Grists site and newsletters free. Climate change, they say, isnt the only form of environmental degradation to worry about. ETHAN: That new ban was signed into law on September 30, and the fact that it was in the news goes to show that even with all the other things going on in the world, people are paying attention to this issue. How many plastic bags are replaced by one cotton tote bag? And sort of the bottom line, what I found with in terms of like the amount of plastic, was about a third of the plastic that was eliminated by the carry out bag ban came back in the form of garbage bags, which do tend to be a bit thicker than the carry out bags. (The crunchy rich should already have more than enough tote bags from PBS and Whole Foods.). Not So Fast by Ben Adler The author of the piece Ben Adler agrees that plastic bags have an adverse impact on the environment. Wow, that was a tough one. It may not be big enough. Cracker plants release air pollutants such as benzene which is linked to cancer and childhood leukemia, toluene which is linked to birth defects and brain, liver, and kidney problems, formaldehyde which is a known carcinogen, and particulate matter which is linked to cardiovascular and respiratory disease and lung and bladder cancer. And honestly, a little sketchy that ethylene cant handle sunlight. 1999-2023 Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Will we use our cotton tote hundreds or thousands of times? Its like when your boss bans YouTube at work, so everyone jumps to Discord. On the other hand, were using thicker bags, which might be emitting more carbon and pollution into the atmosphere. WIRED is where tomorrow is realized. Some social justice activists who work in low-income urban neighborhoods or communities of color also argue that plastic bags are a particular scourge. Whos building these things, Triscuit? And to be fair, it is an issue. Made from fossil fuels 3. Thicker, reusable bags are still available for purchase for 10 cents. Its like the Snapchat of ocean trash its no YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter, but its still relevant. Bags made out of woven plastic like polypropylene can be reused over and over, meaning even though there are consequences to producing plastic, you dont have to manufacture as many bags. Even studies conducted with the purest of intentions depend on any number of assumptions. You can try, but nine times out of ten, its going to rip your original in half. 2- From a retailer's perspective, the thin plastic bags are the most economical of all. And you even have some states, at least 17 in the US who have actually banned bag bans, banned regulating bags in general. Even then, the question remains as to whether single-use bags are necessarily always worse than reusable ones. And cotton, unlike paper, is not currently recycled in most places. In the last couple weeks, I believe around five of our team members got sick, so weve been struggling a little bit! And thats just not true. Remember when I said petrochemical facilities use natural gas for electricity? Whereas the small taxes are very effective. Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? What she finds is actually leave the bag bonuses really dont have an effect. Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? [wrong buzzer, rewind] Cracker? WIRED 181k followers More information Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? I also mistake plastic bags for food sometimes, and let me tell you, Walmart makes a delicious tall kitchen. California became the first to introduce regulations banning single-use plastic bags in August 2014. And buy the thinnest reusable bag that you know, youll actually reuse. Cracker? A single mom, or someone working two jobs, is more likely to have to do her shopping in a rush on the way home from work than to go out specifically with a tote bag in hand. There are also policy options that dont involve bans. I collected data from supermarkets, on the types of bags people were using at checkout, both before and after the policy went into effect. Thats right, go get that bag. But in terms of plastic, you are correct. So is there anything you would suggest to policymakers as they tried to address the issue? Heres just one tiny example: Does the paper for paper bags come from a recycled paper mill on Staten Island or a virgin forest in northern Canada? With a referendum in November 2016, California became the first state to ban single-use plastic bags, according to the National Conference on State Legislatures, which keeps an active list of American laws. And those seven ethylene projects are concentrated in just three counties in Texas: Harris County, Jefferson County, and Brazoria County. The U.S. is the number two producer of polyethylene in the world behind China, and in the U.S., 80 percent of our primary petrochemical supply is in Texas and Louisiana. But if communicated to the public well, I think its an interesting idea, and Id be curious to see if a similar approach could work with bags. The Massachusetts proposal may not become law this year, but its the latest sign that the plastic bag industry is losing this war. Featuring special guest Dr. Rebecca Taylor, Senior Lecturer of Economics at the University of Sydney. We use [drumroll] oil and gas! Some are funded by plastic industry groups, like the ironically named American Progressive Bag Alliance. TAYLOR: Yeah, I would love to see the conversation, sort of move more. Now theres a breakthrough. Thats the percentage the Massachusetts Sierra Club has advocated for at the state level and when lobbying for municipal bag rules. Its taken long enough. To help combat this waste, several American states have enacted bans on plastic grocery bags. ITS PAPER. Twitter, Follow us on Plastic bags could also be more sustainable from the production side. ETHAN: When something causes as many issues as plastic bags, it may seem tempting to ban it. Lets start with paper: the only kind of bag that is, in the most literal tense, tearible. Not only are there these human health concerns, but crackers and other petrochemical facilities are not located very fairly. And cotton, unlike paper, is not currently recycled in most places. Even if bags arent the worst offender though, theyre a very hot topic and in my opinion, a really really interesting and misunderstood one, so Im very excited to talk about it today. The Australian study concluded that the best option appears to be a reusable bag, but one made from recycled plastic, not cotton. Not So Fast" by Ben Adler and the essay "Choking The Oceans With Plastic" by Charles J. Moore they both pose a connection and an area of disagreement. And thats definitely a behavioral effect that we find. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. The larger takeaway is that no bag is free of environmental impact, whether thats contributing to climate change, ocean pollution, water scarcity, or pesticide use. READ MORE. And so in terms of ranking those, that would be my order, taxes, hybrid bands, and then least preferred standalone bands. What a deal! TAYLOR: So an interesting thing with local policies, and theres a lot of debate about whether policies like these should be implemented at the state level or at the local level. If you melt a plastic bag down, you can absolutely recycle that polyethylene, and in fact, recycled high-density polyethylene has about a third of the carbon footprint of virgin high-density polyethylene. [wrong buzz, rewind] Cracker? TAYLOR: Thanks. Unlike reusable fabric bags, plastic bags can take lifetimes to biodegrade.Over that time, their light weight allows them to be carried long distances, causing environmental havoc along the way. Obviously, a cotton tote does have a much longer life than a plastic or paper bag, but we also have to be honest with ourselves. Its what we put in the bag at the grocery store that really matters., 2023 Cond Nast. Not only are there these human health concerns, but crackers and other petrochemical facilities are not located very fairly. Washington, DCs government estimates that its 5-cent bag tax has led to a 60 percent reduction in the number of these bags being used, although that figure is contested by other sources. Bag bans cut this litter off at the source: In San Jose, Calif., a plastic bag ban led to an 89 percent reduction in the number of plastic bags winding up in the citys storm drains. "Exactly what happens to a plastic bag when it is littered depends very much on where it enters the environment and the mechanisms that cause it . Adler, Ben. To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. If a plastic bag is reused in the home as the garbage bag in a bathroom waste bin, does that reduce its footprint by eliminating the need for another small plastic garbage bag? ETHAN: Like, come on, we dont need more toxic chemicals in one spot! And the most common substitute, paper bags, may be just as bad or worse, depending on the environmental problem youre most concerned about. But advocates of these laws and journalists who cover the issue often neglect to ask what will replace plastic bags and what the environmental impact of that replacement will be. Climate change, they say, isnt the only form of environmental degradation to worry about. Instagram, Follow us on But studies conducted in Australia or Europe have limited applicability in the U.S., particularly when youre considering climate impact, because every country has a different energy mix. Anyway, at a cracker plant, they use extreme heat to crack the molecular bonds in the oil or gas to produce a new gas called ethylene. A substantial shift to more durable bags would deliver environmental gains through reductions in greenhouse gases, energy and water use, resource depletion and litter, the study concluded. Its like trying to send paper through a really old copier. ETHAN: So just to wrap up this point, would you say that its a net positive or negative? Facebook, Follow us on Now, a new law hopes to take things a step further by banning these: single-use plastic pre-checkout bags that are not recyclable and can contaminate compost facilities. Like cigarettes, plastic bags have recently gone from a tolerated nuisance to a widely despised and discouraged vice. And so because of that bands have been more popular. Microsoft quietly supported legislation to make it easier to fix devices. The measure now under consideration in Massachusetts, for example, would mandate that single-use paper bags contain at least 40 percent recycled fiber. Throwing This Out Here: Plastic Bags Are Amazing and You Should Appreciate Them More, Trash Is Ugly, But Recycling Is Downright Beautiful. The Massachusetts proposal may not become law this year, but it's the latest sign that the plastic bag industry is losing this war. All that said, paper is made from trees, meaning paper bags contribute to deforestation. Its right up there with Taylor Swifts jet, Beyond Burgers, and figuring out which soup is best for throwing at artwork. Then, that ethylene can be sent to a new plant where theyll add a catalyst which initiates a chemical reaction and forms our high-density polyethylene. They were reusing their carry out bags as garbage bags. ETHAN: Welcome to episode 106 of The Sweaty Penguin: Antarcticas Hottest Podcast. Well discuss the extent to which plastic bags are a problem, some of the shortcomings of the trendier solutions, and some other less commonly discussed ideas for how to most sustainably and effectively move forward. So Im trained in thinking about how People respond to environmental [00:00:32] policy and particular and the policies that I focused on have been around waste and food. For example, I talked in our plastic straws episode about something called default choice modification. Or is it a little too nuanced to make that type of assessment? The one perk with bans is that its by far the easiest policy to explain and enforce. And I think thats the topic I dont know enough about. But for UPROSE, that concern is outweighed by the negative impacts of plastic bags on disadvantaged communities. bags, or maybe even stop keeping bags at the register at all. ETHAN: Another thing I wanted to bring up part of why I was so excited to talk to you is that there is the word behavioral economics in your work. Cities and states across the country are banning plastic bags, but those bans may be having unintended consequences. You would think five cents to reuse a bag would have a state similar behavioral response is five cents to not use a bag to have to pay for than plastic bag. ETHAN: The Sweaty Penguin is presented by Peril and Promise: a public media initiative from The WNET Group in New York, reporting on the issues and solutions around climate change. Killing wildlife 5. In all fairness, every material has a climate impact, and high-density polyethylene is not that bad if you stack its carbon footprint against other materials or even other plastics. Do local governments get to say how these products are regulated? Heres Why That Matters. Some people still keep streaks, I think! I know youve done some comparisons on different strategies and looked at this more holistically. The ideal city bag policy would probably involve charging for paper and plastic single-use bags, as New York City has decided to do, while giving out reusable recycled-plastic bags to those who need them, especially to low-income communities and seniors. If your chief concern is climate change, things get even muddier. Salt Marshes Are Essential Climate Solutions. But it turns out that charging people to use bags is not the same as paying them to bring reusable bags. Plastic bags are made from non-renewable sources and on this account, highly contribute to climate change. Wonder why you hear about legislation concerning plastic bags? And so I was interested in understanding to what degree does a patchwork of policies actually lead customers to switch where theyre shopping. Paper bags do have some pros over plastic theyre biodegradable, recyclable, compostable, reusable, all the fun -ables. Its not easy being a green consumer, in part because there are these different dimensions of environmental impact. This material which is widely used worldwide has been an issue for years now and these readings gives some explanation on why. ETHAN: Obviously, bags are the only policy option like we talked about theres fees theres more voluntary approaches You know, with straws, something that intrigued me was default choice modification. And so my recommendation is to use as few bags as you can reuse the ones that you do purchase and purchase your bags, make it an active decision. California and Hawaii already have . One reason plastic bags should be banned is that they hurt the environment. Amid fracking boom, Pennsylvania faces toxic wastewater reckoning. First, we transport our fossil fuels to a type of petrochemical plant called a cracker. Cracker? [booo] Oil and natural gas are also made of carbon and hydrogen, so in addition to using them for energy, we process them into plastic. As the Australian study noted, a cotton bag has major environmental impacts of its own. Not So Fast Advocates for plastic bag bans often neglect to ask what will replace plastic bags and what the environmental impact of that replacement will be. But not just anywhere. The measure now under consideration in Massachusetts, for example, would mandate that single-use paper bags contain at least 40 percent recycled fiber. Its been more than five years since single-use plastic bags like these were banned from grocery stores, a ban advocates say made strides for the environment. Its like time outs. ETHAN: Does this mean bag bans are bad or bag alternatives are bad? This episode of The Sweaty Penguin explores a wide range of issues including plastic bag manufacturing and looks at the shortcomings of some proposed solutions. Right now! People look at [paper] and say its degradable, therefore its much better for the environment, but its not in terms of climate change impact, says David Tyler, a professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon who has examined the research on the environmental impact of bag use. Like blueberries or trips to the bathroom, not all plastics are created equal, and single-use plastic bags are typically made from a material called high-density polyethylene. But for UPROSE, that concern is outweighed by the negative impacts of plastic bags on disadvantaged communities. CLIP: Its been more than five years since single-use plastic bags like these were banned from grocery stores, a ban advocates say made strides for the environment. Fees have a smaller, but still significant, effect. But advocates of these laws and journalists who cover the issue often neglect to ask what will replace plastic bags and what the environmental impact of that replacement will be. Recently, many politicians were in such a hurry to ban plastic bags. Follow us on Often they need to be reused at least 100, if not more times, to be more environmentally friendly than those thin plastic bags that were so familiar with. ETHAN: Why does all that matter? ETHAN: After we drill and frack and insert other PG13 sounding term here, we have to actually turn our fossil fuels into polyethylene. In other words, rather than emitting carbon, they would take carbon out of the atmosphere. Microplastics can be ingested by anyone from seabirds to fish to even humans through our food and water, and can cause health issues, reduce appetites, and even increase the risk of mortality. In fact, we can take it a step further. Saying go to your room doesnt actually solve anything, but hey, its easier than having an intelligent conversation with a six-year-old. This really needs to be top priority. Shortly after, the Massachusetts State Senate passed a measure that would ban plastic bags from being dispensed by many retail businesses and require acharge of 10 cents or more for a recycled paper or reusable bag. Thats right, I said it. As longtime plastic bag adversary Ian Frazier recently reported in The New Yorker, In 2014, plastic grocery bags were the seventh most common item collected during the Ocean Conservancys International Coastal Cleanup, behind smaller debris such as cigarette butts, plastic straws, and bottle caps. The New York City Sanitation Department collects more than 1,700 tons of single-use carry-out bags every week, and has to spend $12.5 million a year to dispose of them. Now thats just one set of data, but I hope my point is clear: the production of our plastic bags causes harmful air pollution, and that pollution disproportionately hits low income and minority communities. YouTube. Thats where this gets interesting. One of the biggest battery recycling plants in theUSis up and running. If your chief concern is climate change, things get even muddier. And these different dimensions? Often, the problem shifts. Then Oregon, Connecticut, Maine and Vermont passed laws against them. Major funding forPeril and Promiseis provided byDr. P. Roy Vagelos and Diana T. Vageloswith additional funding from Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III,and the Estate of Worthington Mayo-Smith. Even then, the question remains as to whether single-use bags are necessarily always worse than reusable ones. Not So Fast | WIRED Plastic Bottles Plastic Bags And as you mentioned, tote bags can be actually more harmful. Eastern Hemlocks Are Declining. Now a hybrid ban, where you ban a particular thin plastic or film plastic, as long as theres also consideration for the other types of bags such as paper bags, and reusable bags, and requiring stores to charge for those other bags. Advocates for plastic bag bans often neglect to ask what will replace plastic bags and what the environmental impact of that replacement will be. But thats not to say plastic bag recycling couldnt be more widely implemented. But are bans on plastic bags or reusable alternatives like tote or canvas bags viable solutions to the worlds plastic problem? What I found was a net benefit, we were still reducing more plastic than this rebound effect. The Search for Long Covid Treatments Takes a Promising Turn. The Australian study concluded that the best option appears to be a reusable bag, but one made from recycled plastic, not cotton. Try Christmas now! Come with external costs 9. [booo] Yeah, that was even rough for my standards. 1. [knock on door, door creaks open, then Laszlo starts coughing uncontrollably]. Thats one idea that Ive seen floated all over the internet. Capacitors. High costs for cleanup 8. debut in season five. So when you do lifecycle assessments of these two different types of material, paper bags end up being much worse on sort of their upstream, the manufacturing side, so its a bit concerning to also see the shift to paper. First off, I had a lot of cracker jokes, but more importantly being a heat intensive process, the production of plastic bags requires a good amount of energy, and it should come as no surprise that these petrochemical facilities typically use natural gas for their electricity source. Anyway, at a cracker plant, they use extreme heat to crack the molecular bonds in the oil or gas to produce a new gas called ethylene. Hopefully its not laced with xylene! Yes, this was a paper that was interested in how sometimes we dont always think about how people respond to policies, theyre sort of the obvious response. You can order the T-shirt plastic bags in wholesale from Bags . For more than 250 years, mathematicians have wondered if the Euler equations might sometimes fail to describe a fluids flow. Wait, sorry, wrong kind of cracker. New York's ban will take effect in 2020 but will apply to single-use plastic bags you can get at grocery stores or retailers. Washington, D.C.s government estimates that its 5-cent bag tax has led to a 60 percent reduction in the number of these bags being used, although that figure is contested by other sources. And so I think, and subsidies can be quite expensive for governments to run or source to run. In May 2016, the New York City Council passed a 5-cent-per-bag fee on single-use bags handed out by most retailers. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. If they were going to use a slur for white people, why not name it Karen or Wonderbread? Very broadly, carbon footprints are proportional to mass of an object, says Tyler. Again, because this is what I tell people all the time. Fees have a smaller, but still significant, effect. I took a look at a 2017 Congressional Report which found the petrochemical industry was, at the time, pursuing 48 new plastics-related projects in the Houston area. Scientists are working on that, and according to a 2021 thesis study from LUT University in Finland, if that process were powered by clean energy, plastic bags made from carbon dioxide could actually be carbon negative. The first time you say your dog ate it, its a funny story, but by the fifth time, youre definitely going to fail first grade. Facebook, Follow us on I mean, I know it loves to hang at the cracker plants and all but wouldnt it have more fun hanging out with other creatures of the night? I asked Dr. Taylor how we can account for the cost of alternatives when we create policies to address plastic bags. LASZLO: Oh, alright, if itll shut you up. And then if when those you know are no longer possible, can we recycle them? As compared to plastic bags, paper bags also require significantly more energy and water to manufacture, and more energy to transport since theyre heavier. How do we do that? How do we do that? Doing either earns you a special shoutout at the end of the show; joining the Patreon gets you merch, bonus content, and a whole lot more. [slam the wrong buzz several times, then rewind] Okay, okay cracker? Whats more? As far as I know, nobody has done the definitive analysis, which would necessarily need to have a large number of caveats and qualifications. Course Hero, a tutoring business last valued by investors at $3.6 billion, has cut 15% of staff, or 42 people its first round of layoffs . You start growing weird pimples at 10, youre crying five times a week at 15, and by 20, someone has to carry you into a therapists office, throw you on the couch, and say its broken, fix it. For plastic though, 20 years is much less time than most other single-use plastic products. Was Implementation the Right Theme for COP27? TAYLOR: Its a great question, I would say its a bit nuanced, because that was just respect with respect to the plastic bags. One of the most comprehensive research papers on the environmental impact of bags, published in 2007 by an Australian state government agency, found that paper bags have a higher carbon footprint than plastic. So if its something thats easy to keep in your car, or in your purse or in your backpack that you know youll reuse, then thats going to be the bag for you. Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? A lot of the waste ends up in our communities, says Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE, an environmental and social justice-oriented community organization in Brooklyn. ETHAN: Given all this nuance weve explored pertaining to carry out bags, grocery bags, is there any advice you have for individuals who want to do their part? California and Hawaii banned them, then New York. Before I jump in, were trying out a little bit of a different format today. Ironic.plastic is still better than cloth, but it just has to be more than single-use. What if they used solar or wind? The larger takeaway is that no bag is free of environmental impact, whether thats contributing to climate change, ocean pollution, water scarcity, or pesticide use. The first time you say your dog ate it, its a funny story, but by the fifth time, youre definitely going to fail first grade. ETHAN: Beyond climate though, crackers cause a lot of issues for surrounding communities. People still need bags to bring home their groceries. But sales of garbage bags increased substantially and especially those small garbage bags that you know, are around the same size as the carryout back. by John Stossel | May 5, 2020.
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