Ten years after California passed landmark legislation to reduce plastic bag use, the tonnage of discarded bags has skyrocketed. What happened?

It was a decade ago when California became the first state in the nation to ban single-use plastic bags, ushering in a wave of anti-plastic legislation from coast to coast.

But in the years after California seemingly kicked its plastic grocery sack habit, material recovery facilities and environmental activists noticed a peculiar trend: Plastic bag waste by weight was increasing to unprecedented levels.

According to a report by the consumer advocacy group CALPIRG, 157,385 tons of plastic bag waste was discarded in California the year the law was passed. By 2022, however, the tonnage of discarded plastic bags had skyrocketed to 231,072 — a 47% jump. Even accounting for an increase in population, the number rose from 4.08 tons per 1,000 people in 2014 to 5.89 tons per 1,000 people in 2022.

The problem, it turns out, was a section of the law that allowed grocery stores and large retailers to provide thicker, heavier-weight plastic bags to customers for the price of a dime.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
    3·
    9 months ago

    LOL my wife would come home with brand new plant liners. WTF! You can just vacuum form these things and reuse them as furniture.

      • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
        2·
        9 months ago

        I’m just agreeing with the post. My wife went from bringing countless things plastic bags to bringing countless thick plastic bags. The mindset of re-use was limited to using the bags to toss baby diapers. But not actually to keep using the bag over and over for bringing groceries home.