6 ms·

I don't remember energy use being the problem with plastic bags? It was plastic bags being absolutely everywhere in the environment. Streets, parks, trees. Wra

by duggan 16d ago

I don't remember energy use being the problem with plastic bags? It was plastic bags being absolutely everywhere in the environment. Streets, parks, trees. Wrapped around anything sticking out of the ground. On your face on a windy day. Pollution is the problem with plastic. Probably health, too, now that microplastics are being recognized as an issue.

crab_galaxy 16d ago
Every winter in my city, once the leaves all fell, our trees would be draped in shredded plastic bags. Banning single use plastic bags has done a significant amount to beautify this place.
- justonceokay 16d ago
  When visiting Seattle for the first time my mom was simultaneously outraged at the lack of plastic bags and the recycling bins everywhere, and also in awe at how clean the city was. Never did the two thoughts cross each other in her head
  - embedding-shape 16d ago
    > When visiting Seattle for the first time my mom was simultaneously outraged at the lack of plastic bags and the recycling bins everywhere The first part I kind of get, humans get used to stuff they get, and get frustrated when it disappears without them really understanding why, it's kind of understandable. But why would she be outraged about recycling bins being more readily available? Are the recycling bins like really ugly/disgusting, or why would they upset someone? Sounds like being upset about there being too many libraries or something.
    - vel0city 16d ago
      > Sounds like being upset about there being too many libraries or something. You joke but people who complain about public recycling bins would also likely be the ones to complain about public libraries too. I've encountered many people who think libraries exist to poison the minds of the youth and somehow make homelessness a problem and we should shut them all down to alleviate the homeless issues in our communities and ensure higher community standards in education (mostly, go read the bible at church, that's all you need).
    - dghlsakjg 15d ago
      It’s the same sentiment behind the weird boomer meme of getting befuddled in a coffee shop because they just want a cup of drip coffee. People will get confused about what goes where and complain about it, when the option to just put it all in the garbage was always there anyways.
- RankingMember 16d ago
  They were also so damn cheap that clerks would bag EVERYTHING without asking, so they not only covered the streets like you describe, but often after offering no actual utility to begin with.
  - crab_galaxy 16d ago
    People used to love giving out plastic bags for one item. Who needs a bag for a single item??
    - adwn 16d ago
      A plastic bag protects against water and dirt, and it has handles for carrying. I'm not necessarily defending the practice, but it has its reasons.
- schnevets 16d ago
  Yeap. In my pantry right now, I probably have 12 reusable bags. Some of them have been used hundreds of times (and have the battle scars and stains to prove it) while others were used once because I had to run into a grocery store unprepared. The math probably averages out to a slight advantage for reusable, and that doesn't take unique use cases into account: for example, I found every container I owned useful during a recent move. I'm sure skeptics like the article's writers would tweak some numbers to say disposables have an advantage, so who cares? The fact is there are less gunky, sludge-riddled bags in the gutter of my downtown and that absolutely justifies the bans, despite what this article or the NY Post might argue.
Symmetry 16d ago
But the pollution problem from plastic bags is solved equally well if we bury them or recycle them. Provided your municipality doesn't just dump trash in the nearest river which is an issue in some parts of the world. Since we can't get 100% compliance in rich countries and poor countries can't afford landfills that's a good reason to not use plastic. But it's not a good reason to have plastic recycling programs.
- xboxnolifes 16d ago
  That doesn't solve the problem of people littering. Obviously if trash gets into the trash can it ends up at the landfill.
  - lanfeust6 16d ago
    Littering is mostly cans, disposable cups and food-related containers; not bags straight from the grocery store.
    - dghlsakjg 15d ago
      How old are you? I can remember when there would be drifts of these bags caught in fence lines, trees, sewer grates etc. Before bag bans there were SO MANY of these things everywhere. There’s a whole scene about the beauty of plastic shopping bags in “American Beauty” in 1996. The whole point was finding beauty in something that was so common that you walk by it every day.
- vel0city 16d ago
  > But the pollution problem from plastic bags is solved equally well if we bury them or recycle them We can't even reliably trust people to put the plastic bags in a bin and have that bin be cleanly collected and yet you're expecting people to bury them?? No, the solution is to massively reduce how often we use single-use plastic bags. It seems like every time I buy anything from any store its just assumed I want it in a plastic bag. Getting a single bottled drink at a convenience store? The clerk gets a plastic bag ready. Its insane.
lolcatzlulz 16d ago
I remember a debate in Texas politics a few years ago because livestock were dying from consumption of littered plastic bags. The state government response was to ban the ban of plastic bags.
- throwitaway222 16d ago
  CA did the wrong thing for like 12 years. We just finally went back to paper bags for everything. If it ends up on a road, it won't kill animals, it will eventually break apart and turn into particulates. It's what we did before plastic bags rained from the sky into all grocery stores. And the best part: if you have permanent bags you can still use them.
  - somenameforme 16d ago
    There's [very] biodegradable plastics as well. I found out my local store swapped to them in a pretty amusing way. I'd collect plastic bags to use as trash bags and the like. One day I went to grab some from under my counter there was this mess of orange confetti like stuff everywhere from some of the [orange] bags that'd degraded even in just normal storage conditions.
    - throwaway2037 16d ago
      How fast do these "[very] biodegradable plastics" degrade? Probably not as fast a wind gust can trap them in trees, or livestock can accidentally injest them.
      - somenameforme 16d ago
        I can only recount my experience with them. A quick search on the topic suggests it was probably starch/cellulose based and degradation can happen within days in ideal conditions - which generally means some sort of moisture. It was stored in an enclosed but outdoor type kitchen environment, so humidity was probably elevated relative to a normal indoor scenario.
      - 16d ago
smartmic 16d ago
> Streets, parks, trees You forgot the biggest and probably the most sensitive dump: the (deep) sea.
- verisimi 16d ago
  Shirley, the most sensitive dump is in testicles? Microplastics in balls. Like a ball pit.
- lanfeust6 16d ago
  The article goes over this. Plastic in oceans is from east asian countries without a good municipal waste system, not from developed countries.
  - dguest 15d ago
    Fixing the municipal waste system seems like the "add another system" school of engineering. As someone who works in poorly organized, poorly funded projects, I generally subscribe more to the "remove the problematic part of the existing system" school. Getting rid of single-use wherever possible removes the broken part. I agree that we should also add more systems like proper waste disposal, but it's more complexity to count on.
trencedamp 16d ago
Another point, to counter the " plastic bags are cheap, cotton is expensive" argument, is that most of the reusable bags are plastic too. They are way cheaper to produce than cotton bags, and earn their keep within about 5 to 10 uses as opposed to 100 or whatever the crazy figure was for cotton bags.
- scotty79 16d ago
  You can use single use plastic bag 50 times or more before it deteriorates, not the thinnest kind, but the average one. They are incredibly strong. The dedicated mult-use ones are insanely strong, but also few times thicker and more unwieldy. Like with single use shaving razor. They don't need to be literally single use. It depends on the user. You can use it as long as it serves you. The best thing limiting access to plastic bags did was familiarizing people with the idea of taking bags to the market.
  - zejn 16d ago
    Just a note: Razors are single use for health reasons - not reusing razor significantly reduces chances of inflammation.
    - throwaway2037 16d ago
      If this is really true, why does Gillette advertise their high-end, multi-blade razors as multi-use? For their top product, they say "up to 20 comfortable shaves".
      - zejn 16d ago
        Sure, as you can also reuse single use razors. But the main benefit of single use is reducing the chances of skin inflammation after using the razor. If using single-use razors, I'd recommend replacing just the blades, not the razor.
        trencedamp 16d ago
WarmWash 16d ago
My state did away with bags a few years ago, and you now never see bags blowing around or stuck on trees. It also seems everyone stopped complaining about it once we got over the hump of "remember to bring your bags". So we are just left with a small group of old timers, who would probably bring back metal (pull) tab cans if they could, complaining about it. Ironically its the same group of people who blocked windmills because they are "unsightly".
- wavemode 16d ago
  Your state has eliminated metal tab cans? Huh. What do you drink 12oz of pop out of?
  - mtklein 16d ago
    Decades ago they used to pull completely off the can (think Jimmy Buffet "stepped on a pop-top").
  - throwaway2037 16d ago
    I think they mean the 1970s-style "pull-tabs" that disconnected from the can. These were frequently discarded as litter, instead of put in a proper bin. I can remember seeing a lot of them in road gutters as a kid. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drink_can#Opening_mechanisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drink_can#Opening_mechanisms
    - Smoosh 16d ago
      For those not familiar, these are the ones which were in common use in the 1970s and 1980s: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/12/4f/79124fb24fd0cc6ac4cf502b032f1bfd.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/12/4f/79124fb24fd0cc6ac4cf...
  - bichiliad 16d ago
    I think that’s about pull tabs (the old kind where you removed a small disc from the top of a can) vs pop tabs (the kind where you punch a hole into it and nothing detaches).
globular-toast 16d ago
Right. This seems to be written by someone who has never been outside and seen the amount of plastic alongside roads or caught in bushes etc. And this is in a country that is supposed to be good at collecting waste.
broken-kebab 16d ago
It's a conspicuous part. But energy use is still a problem. Like, maybe high-kicking people throwing trash everywhere would be cheaper solution then letting them do it, but with paper instead of PET. If we won't calculate we can't be sure
- duggan 16d ago
  Personally I think this problem is being solved the right way from a systems perspective. Energy production is centralized, so the benefits of it becoming cleaner is spread as soon as it arrives, whereas single-use plastic pollution is diffuse, with compounding damage.
card_zero 15d ago
I do. I remember arguing "you just want this requirement for aesthetic reasons, you're enforcing your aesthetic values", and getting told no, no, it's a way to fight climate change. There was also something about dolphins eating the single use bags.

by duggan 16d ago

crab_galaxy 16d ago

Every winter in my city, once the leaves all fell, our trees would be draped in shredded plastic bags. Banning single use plastic bags has done a significant amount to beautify this place.

justonceokay 16d ago
When visiting Seattle for the first time my mom was simultaneously outraged at the lack of plastic bags and the recycling bins everywhere, and also in awe at how clean the city was. Never did the two thoughts cross each other in her head
- embedding-shape 16d ago
  > When visiting Seattle for the first time my mom was simultaneously outraged at the lack of plastic bags and the recycling bins everywhere The first part I kind of get, humans get used to stuff they get, and get frustrated when it disappears without them really understanding why, it's kind of understandable. But why would she be outraged about recycling bins being more readily available? Are the recycling bins like really ugly/disgusting, or why would they upset someone? Sounds like being upset about there being too many libraries or something.
  - vel0city 16d ago
    > Sounds like being upset about there being too many libraries or something. You joke but people who complain about public recycling bins would also likely be the ones to complain about public libraries too. I've encountered many people who think libraries exist to poison the minds of the youth and somehow make homelessness a problem and we should shut them all down to alleviate the homeless issues in our communities and ensure higher community standards in education (mostly, go read the bible at church, that's all you need).
  - dghlsakjg 15d ago
    It’s the same sentiment behind the weird boomer meme of getting befuddled in a coffee shop because they just want a cup of drip coffee. People will get confused about what goes where and complain about it, when the option to just put it all in the garbage was always there anyways.
RankingMember 16d ago
They were also so damn cheap that clerks would bag EVERYTHING without asking, so they not only covered the streets like you describe, but often after offering no actual utility to begin with.
- crab_galaxy 16d ago
  People used to love giving out plastic bags for one item. Who needs a bag for a single item??
  - adwn 16d ago
    A plastic bag protects against water and dirt, and it has handles for carrying. I'm not necessarily defending the practice, but it has its reasons.
schnevets 16d ago
Yeap. In my pantry right now, I probably have 12 reusable bags. Some of them have been used hundreds of times (and have the battle scars and stains to prove it) while others were used once because I had to run into a grocery store unprepared. The math probably averages out to a slight advantage for reusable, and that doesn't take unique use cases into account: for example, I found every container I owned useful during a recent move. I'm sure skeptics like the article's writers would tweak some numbers to say disposables have an advantage, so who cares? The fact is there are less gunky, sludge-riddled bags in the gutter of my downtown and that absolutely justifies the bans, despite what this article or the NY Post might argue.

Symmetry 16d ago

But the pollution problem from plastic bags is solved equally well if we bury them or recycle them. Provided your municipality doesn't just dump trash in the nearest river which is an issue in some parts of the world. Since we can't get 100% compliance in rich countries and poor countries can't afford landfills that's a good reason to not use plastic. But it's not a good reason to have plastic recycling programs.

xboxnolifes 16d ago
That doesn't solve the problem of people littering. Obviously if trash gets into the trash can it ends up at the landfill.
- lanfeust6 16d ago
  Littering is mostly cans, disposable cups and food-related containers; not bags straight from the grocery store.
  - dghlsakjg 15d ago
    How old are you? I can remember when there would be drifts of these bags caught in fence lines, trees, sewer grates etc. Before bag bans there were SO MANY of these things everywhere. There’s a whole scene about the beauty of plastic shopping bags in “American Beauty” in 1996. The whole point was finding beauty in something that was so common that you walk by it every day.
vel0city 16d ago
> But the pollution problem from plastic bags is solved equally well if we bury them or recycle them We can't even reliably trust people to put the plastic bags in a bin and have that bin be cleanly collected and yet you're expecting people to bury them?? No, the solution is to massively reduce how often we use single-use plastic bags. It seems like every time I buy anything from any store its just assumed I want it in a plastic bag. Getting a single bottled drink at a convenience store? The clerk gets a plastic bag ready. Its insane.

lolcatzlulz 16d ago

I remember a debate in Texas politics a few years ago because livestock were dying from consumption of littered plastic bags. The state government response was to ban the ban of plastic bags.

throwitaway222 16d ago
CA did the wrong thing for like 12 years. We just finally went back to paper bags for everything. If it ends up on a road, it won't kill animals, it will eventually break apart and turn into particulates. It's what we did before plastic bags rained from the sky into all grocery stores. And the best part: if you have permanent bags you can still use them.
- somenameforme 16d ago
  There's [very] biodegradable plastics as well. I found out my local store swapped to them in a pretty amusing way. I'd collect plastic bags to use as trash bags and the like. One day I went to grab some from under my counter there was this mess of orange confetti like stuff everywhere from some of the [orange] bags that'd degraded even in just normal storage conditions.
  - throwaway2037 16d ago
    How fast do these "[very] biodegradable plastics" degrade? Probably not as fast a wind gust can trap them in trees, or livestock can accidentally injest them.
    - somenameforme 16d ago
      I can only recount my experience with them. A quick search on the topic suggests it was probably starch/cellulose based and degradation can happen within days in ideal conditions - which generally means some sort of moisture. It was stored in an enclosed but outdoor type kitchen environment, so humidity was probably elevated relative to a normal indoor scenario.
    - 16d ago

smartmic 16d ago

> Streets, parks, trees You forgot the biggest and probably the most sensitive dump: the (deep) sea.

verisimi 16d ago
Shirley, the most sensitive dump is in testicles? Microplastics in balls. Like a ball pit.
lanfeust6 16d ago
The article goes over this. Plastic in oceans is from east asian countries without a good municipal waste system, not from developed countries.
- dguest 15d ago
  Fixing the municipal waste system seems like the "add another system" school of engineering. As someone who works in poorly organized, poorly funded projects, I generally subscribe more to the "remove the problematic part of the existing system" school. Getting rid of single-use wherever possible removes the broken part. I agree that we should also add more systems like proper waste disposal, but it's more complexity to count on.

trencedamp 16d ago

Another point, to counter the " plastic bags are cheap, cotton is expensive" argument, is that most of the reusable bags are plastic too. They are way cheaper to produce than cotton bags, and earn their keep within about 5 to 10 uses as opposed to 100 or whatever the crazy figure was for cotton bags.

scotty79 16d ago
You can use single use plastic bag 50 times or more before it deteriorates, not the thinnest kind, but the average one. They are incredibly strong. The dedicated mult-use ones are insanely strong, but also few times thicker and more unwieldy. Like with single use shaving razor. They don't need to be literally single use. It depends on the user. You can use it as long as it serves you. The best thing limiting access to plastic bags did was familiarizing people with the idea of taking bags to the market.
- zejn 16d ago
  Just a note: Razors are single use for health reasons - not reusing razor significantly reduces chances of inflammation.
  - throwaway2037 16d ago
    If this is really true, why does Gillette advertise their high-end, multi-blade razors as multi-use? For their top product, they say "up to 20 comfortable shaves".
    - zejn 16d ago
      Sure, as you can also reuse single use razors. But the main benefit of single use is reducing the chances of skin inflammation after using the razor. If using single-use razors, I'd recommend replacing just the blades, not the razor.
      - trencedamp 16d ago

WarmWash 16d ago

My state did away with bags a few years ago, and you now never see bags blowing around or stuck on trees. It also seems everyone stopped complaining about it once we got over the hump of "remember to bring your bags". So we are just left with a small group of old timers, who would probably bring back metal (pull) tab cans if they could, complaining about it. Ironically its the same group of people who blocked windmills because they are "unsightly".

wavemode 16d ago
Your state has eliminated metal tab cans? Huh. What do you drink 12oz of pop out of?
- mtklein 16d ago
  Decades ago they used to pull completely off the can (think Jimmy Buffet "stepped on a pop-top").
- throwaway2037 16d ago
  I think they mean the 1970s-style "pull-tabs" that disconnected from the can. These were frequently discarded as litter, instead of put in a proper bin. I can remember seeing a lot of them in road gutters as a kid. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drink_can#Opening_mechanisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drink_can#Opening_mechanisms
  - Smoosh 16d ago
    For those not familiar, these are the ones which were in common use in the 1970s and 1980s: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/12/4f/79124fb24fd0cc6ac4cf502b032f1bfd.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/12/4f/79124fb24fd0cc6ac4cf...
- bichiliad 16d ago
  I think that’s about pull tabs (the old kind where you removed a small disc from the top of a can) vs pop tabs (the kind where you punch a hole into it and nothing detaches).

globular-toast 16d ago

Right. This seems to be written by someone who has never been outside and seen the amount of plastic alongside roads or caught in bushes etc. And this is in a country that is supposed to be good at collecting waste.

broken-kebab 16d ago

It's a conspicuous part. But energy use is still a problem. Like, maybe high-kicking people throwing trash everywhere would be cheaper solution then letting them do it, but with paper instead of PET. If we won't calculate we can't be sure

duggan 16d ago
Personally I think this problem is being solved the right way from a systems perspective. Energy production is centralized, so the benefits of it becoming cleaner is spread as soon as it arrives, whereas single-use plastic pollution is diffuse, with compounding damage.

card_zero 15d ago

I do. I remember arguing "you just want this requirement for aesthetic reasons, you're enforcing your aesthetic values", and getting told no, no, it's a way to fight climate change. There was also something about dolphins eating the single use bags.