Banning free plastic bags for groceries resulted in customers purchasing more plastic bags, study finds

[hunter]

10. California is banning all plastic bags starting in 2016.

The ten cent charge for supposedly "reusable" plastic bags didn't work, it only increased the tonnage of plastic going to our landfills.

Ten years after California approved a plastic bag ban that’s been blamed for making its plastic bag problem worse, the state is banning single-use plastic grocery bags entirely.

In 2014, California became the first state to pass a plastic bag ban. It’s one of at least 12 states that now have some form of ban on single-use plastic bags.

But because of a loophole in its initial ban that allowed grocers to charge for thicker plastic bags, California still dumped 231,072 tons of plastic grocery and merchandise bags in landfills in 2021, according to the state’s recycling agency, CalRecycle. That was a sharp increase from the year the ban took effect — and nearly 100,000 more tons than in 2018.

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https://www.npr.org/2024/09/25/nx-s1-5123535/california-passes-new-plastic-bag-ban