California's environmental-friendly lawmakers were quite proud of themselves when, in 2014, they passed a first-in-the-nation ban on stores from handing out so-called single-use plastic bags as a means to turn back the tide, so to speak, on an ocean-pollution "Crisis" that was threatening marine wildlife and supposedly turning our beaches into waste dumps.
The legislation got entangled in the usual interest-group politics involving bag makers, unions, grocers, and recyclers.
Now grocers could only sell bulky paper bags - or those thicker, supposedly reusable plastic bags.
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.
For starters, those thin plastic bags that grocery stores used to hand out to shoppers weren't really single-use bags.
An extra 50 cents per shopping trip isn't going to bust the budget, so who cares? In other words, I kept using bags, but this time I had to buy "Reusable" bags that are five times thicker than the old ones and no longer fit in my pocket when I walked the dogs.
Well, the waste stream has increased; its doubtful cleanup costs have lessened - and the switch to reusable bags has exacerbated the problem.
https://spectator.org/environmentalist-fail-again-plastic-bag-ban-made-pollution-worse/
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