California Plastic Bag Ban Backfires: LA Times Reports Increased Waste Issue

MJP –

The plastic bag ban, which increased plastic garbage, is reportedly being called for a “do-over” in an editorial piece published in the Los Angeles Times.

The thicker convenience totes that were supposed to replace single-use plastic shopping bags after California became the first state to prohibit them in 2016 didn’t get recycled and weren’t reused either. According to the research, California’s landfill trash has never been higher, and it’s all due to plastic bags.

The study, which examined the effects of a ban on single-use plastic bags enacted a decade ago to promote the use of reusable bags and decrease trash, was published in February by the Los Angeles Times.

Although many customers also discarded the thicker “reusable” plastic bags offered by some stores as an additional “loophole” at checkout, the bags were only used once.

Image – Fox News

The Blue State Bag Ban, Intended to Preserve the Environment, Is Backfiring at an Alarming Rate: Research

“No one is to blame for this bad situation,” the editorial board now asserts. Nothing sketchy was done, and no gaps were filled.

Shops distributed them like sweets, and no amount of recycling would have helped customers. The editorial stated that none of the state’s recycling centers would take these bags.

There were almost 157,385 tons of plastic bags discarded in California in 2014. However, data from CalRecycle, CALPIRG, the consumer advocacy group, shows that plastic bags made up around 231,072 tons of waste in 2022, an increase of nearly 50%.

“This is not sustainable,” the editorial board stated. “We need a do-over — a second plastic bag ban that fulfills the promise that lawmakers made in 2014 by passing Senate Bill 270 and that voters embraced two years later when they rejected an industry-led ballot measure to overturn it.”

Pandemic worries, which led to the suspension of the plastic bag ban for reasons of public health, they say, exacerbated the problem.

Proposed Legislation Would Outlaw Single-Use Plastic Bags at California Grocery Stores

Editorial board members of the Times are claiming that two bills in the legislature would solve the problem. One of the bills would make it illegal to use plastic bags at checkout in grocery stores starting in 2026. The other would restrict customers to using paper bags made of 50% recycled materials or “truly reusable bags” that they bring with them.

Additionally, they are urging lawmakers to broaden the bill’s scope to outlaw the use of plastic bags at some retail establishments, restaurants, and farmer’s markets. However, they argue that this is just the beginning and that every country and state should work together to phase out single-use plastic packaging.

“California has already taken a step in that direction by passing Senate Bill 54 two years ago, which by 2032 will phase out most plastic found today on grocery store shelves,” the article said. “As for plastic bags, we can and should deal with them sooner.”