Did California’s plastic bag ban make plastic waste a bigger problem?
It’s been 10 years since California banned single-use plastic bags and our plastic bag waste per pound has…GONE UP?! Yes, turns out it’s shot up by 47%.
It’s been 10 years since California became the first state to ban single-use plastic bags and in that time, plastic bag waste has increased by 47%.
What happened? Let’s dig into this recent article from Susanne Rust and get the facts.
First, the garbage data. In 2014, when the ban was passed, Californians threw out roughly 315 million pounds of plastic bags. By 2022, Californians were throwing out 462 million pounds of plastic bags, a 47% increase.
Now, if you’ve paid 10 cents for a plastic bag at checkout, then you can guess why plastic bag waste per pound has gone up. These new “reusable” plastic bags are just thicker single-use bags. But these bags are compliant with the 2014 law because I paid 10 cents for them and technically they “are recyclable.”
But most recycling facilities don’t recycle them. Literally, even CalRecycle says “Plastic bags aren’t recycled on a large scale in California” So they go to the landfill.
Recently, two separate bills were introduced by the California Legislature to close the loophole that plastic bag companies slipped through in the first place by proposing legislation that would also ban these thicker plastic bags.
Will it become law? Well, if the plastics industry fights it like last time, you can expect them to spend millions trying to block the legislation or amend it to the point that a thicker plastic bag ends up as the solution for banning single-use plastic bags.
What happened? Let’s dig into this recent article from Susanne Rust and get the facts.
First, the garbage data. In 2014, when the ban was passed, Californians threw out roughly 315 million pounds of plastic bags. By 2022, Californians were throwing out 462 million pounds of plastic bags, a 47% increase.
Now, if you’ve paid 10 cents for a plastic bag at checkout, then you can guess why plastic bag waste per pound has gone up. These new “reusable” plastic bags are just thicker single-use bags. But these bags are compliant with the 2014 law because I paid 10 cents for them and technically they “are recyclable.”
But most recycling facilities don’t recycle them. Literally, even CalRecycle says “Plastic bags aren’t recycled on a large scale in California” So they go to the landfill.
Recently, two separate bills were introduced by the California Legislature to close the loophole that plastic bag companies slipped through in the first place by proposing legislation that would also ban these thicker plastic bags.
Will it become law? Well, if the plastics industry fights it like last time, you can expect them to spend millions trying to block the legislation or amend it to the point that a thicker plastic bag ends up as the solution for banning single-use plastic bags.
