Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, has signed into law a ban on all plastic bags given out by grocery stores.
“Paper or plastic” will no longer be a choice at grocery store checkout lines in California under a new law signed on Sunday by the governor, Gavin Newsom, that bans all plastic shopping bags.
California had already banned thin plastic shopping bags at supermarkets and other stores, but shoppers could purchase bags made with a thicker plastic that purportedly made them reusable and recyclable.
The new measure, approved by state legislators last month, bans all plastic shopping bags starting in 2026. Consumers who don’t bring their own bags will now simply be asked if they want a paper bag.
State senator Catherine Blakespear, one of the bill’s supporters, said people were not reusing or recycling any plastic bags. She pointed to a state study that found that the amount of plastic shopping bags trashed a person grew from 8lb (3.6kg) a year in 2004 to 11lb a year in 2021.
Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, said the previous bag ban passed a decade ago didn’t reduce the overall use of plastic.
“We are literally choking our planet with plastic waste,” she said in February.
The environmental non-profit Oceana applauded Newsom for signing the bill and “safeguarding California’s coastline, marine life, and communities from single-use plastic grocery bags”.
I would not be at all surprised if there is a right wing freakout over this, asserting that this is yet another violation of our fundamental freedoms, that the right to plastic bags is somewhere in the constitution, along with the right to bear arms, and that soon the entire nation will adopt it and become like the Socialist Republic of California.
This is not so far-fetched. Remember the furore of the elimination of incandescent light bulbs? Also the fuss over the move to require gas stoves to be more energy efficient, which was deliberately misrepresented as an effort to eliminate them entirely? Also those who decried the shift to energy efficient dishwashers and washing machines and low-flow toilets? People initially yelled loudly that these were not working as well and depriving them of the freedom of choice but eventually that died out as people got used to them and realized that they worked just fine, though creepy Donald Trump still complains about washing machines, dishwashers, and toilets.
It turns out that reusable cloth bags are not that energy efficient.
Producing one cotton canvas tote bag uses as much energy as 400 plastic bags.
As the British study discovered, a canvas bag has to be reused thousands of times before it is more environmentally friendly than a standard plastic bag. And to be as eco-friendly as their plastic counterparts, paper bags must be reused thrice. The results were even more discouraging regarding cotton totes: canvas totes require more than 130 reuses to equal the environmental effect of plastic bags.
The reason to not use single-use plastic bags is simply the need to reduce plastic waste, which is being increasingly recognized to be an environmental menace. Single-use plastic bottles, especially water bottles, are another major pollutant.
The plastic bag ban will not affect me. I already use reusable plastic bags for shopping, some of which I’ve had for decades. I am not sure why more people do not use them because it is so easy. I suspect that it is because people forget to take them to the store and thus have to get new bags. To avoid that, once I unpack items from the bags at home, I keep the bags by the door to remind me to put them in the trunk of my car when I next go out anywhere. That way the bags are always in the car if I should decide to do some shopping.
TYRANNY! The communist-nazist atheist muslims are removing our liberties one after another! / s
My town banned plastic bags a while ago, and what happened for shoppers? Nothing. I didn’t even notice for a while. Shoppers found that their own bags, or the occasional paper ones, are just as good or better.
I think that cutting way back on use is the only way to address plastic pollution, because, as a chemist, I can tell you that those molecules are extremely resistant to everything, they do not react at all, and there’s no good way to break them down. (Well, you could burn them, that’d help a whole heap.)
I’ve had my own shoppng bags for a long while, because they are *much better* that those silly useless plastic ones and easier to carry than paper. I can throw them in the washing machine, and I actually keep them in the trunk of my car. Easy peasy.
I seem to recall that in Europe (maybe just England?) they never gave bags at all, just a parcel and you carried it however you could. They seemed to be able to live with that.
Me, I mostly go shopping with a backpack and an insulated bag that I pre-load with an ice pack for the cold stuff that I buy. Of course, I live by myself so I don’t buy huge amounts of stuff, and I live in a city with a decent public transit system so I don’t bother to drive a car for shopping either. (And there’s a big grocery store that’s only about a half hour’s walk away anyway.) It’s enough of a routine these days that I don’t generally forget to pack the insulated bag anymore.
My experience is similar to garnetstar’s. About 30 years ago, a national pet food-and-supplies chain offered cotton canvas bags for a dollar as part of a charity event. All these years later, I still have them and use them all the time. They’ve held up great to washing and drying. They carry food and library books and act as carry-alls. The handles are comfortable and they do not rip.
Like jenorafeuer, I also have an insulated bag I bought at a membership big-box store. I’ve used that for a decade. I put it in my car with some ice packs when I go shopping for something that needs to be kept cool.
The same membership big-box store also gives out big cardboard boxes that they’d otherwise throw out or recycle; two of them fit neatly across the back of my trunk, and when I do a big shopping trip, I put the non-refrigerated items in one box for easy carrying, and the insulated bag in the other box. Then I use the carry-handles in the boxes to bring them into the house. The boxes last a couple of years before they need to go into the recycle bin.
garnetstar @2
In Germany, plastic shopping bags were used until the end of 2021. Only the very thin, small ones at the counters with fresh fruit, veggies etc. remain. That is the result of EU Directive 2015/720.
There was some outrage in the media, of course, mostly possibly as clickbait. But the sky did not fall down.
Washington state banned single-use plastic bags 3 years ago (and many locales had previous local bans), but now I see my local Krogers offering the choice of paper or plastic again, except now the plastic bags are thicker and intended to be reused. (There is also a charge per bag, whichever kind). I normally use a backpack when I shop there, but now I also have a reusable plastic bag in each backpack for those times I have item(s) that would not fit in the backpack.
The same shop also collects plastic bags of all kinds (including bread bags, bags used to package vegetables etc), supposedly for recycling. I have no idea if that even works, but since the only alternative is to trash such bags we collect ours and bring them over.
Chalk me up as another backpack shopper. I’m in the habit of never leaving home without it, and in one of its compartments I keep a folded up reusable second bag in case I need extra capacity. But I prefer to avoid needing it since the backpack is hands-free.
Plastic bags were phased out here a few years back. Some places offer paper, some only purchaseable reusable bags (usually canvas). My big complaint with paper bags, besides the risk of it ripping, is that they never seem to come with handles. But I’ve barely been affected since I’ve been using the backpack and other reusable bags for over a decade now.
The small quoted part includes “400” “thousands” and “130”.
These numbers are not the same.
Are you sure this isn’t some incoherent AI article?
I question their parameters for defining “eco-friendly”. Energy efficiency isn’t such a serious criteria if the energy is from clean renewable sources. On the other hand, plastic particles contaminating the entire world’s ecosystem for hundreds(?) (thousands?) of years is a very serious concern.
“Producing one cotton canvas tote bag uses as much energy as 400 plastic bags.”
So that canvas bag only has to last a few years to displace 400 plastic bags. And in any case, energy use isn’t the only factor at play here. 400 kWh from solar panels is still chucking out less pollution than 1 kWh from fossil fuels, even before you factor in the ill effects of 400 plastic bags.
Another thought--it’s possible that plain cotton canvas bags would be compostable after they’re no longer usable (don’t know--mine are 30 and still going strong). Plastic is not compostable. Okay, I googled it and a bunch of different websites assure me it’s possible if you cut the bag into small pieces.
In California, the AG (Bonta) is suing ExxonMobil for misleading the public on the recyclability of plastic and for polluting the environment. https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/23/climate/california-sues-exxonmobil-plastic-recycling/index.html
I’ve been using the same plastic bag for years, and it keeps on going. IIRC made by Ticket to the Moon. The material is recycled PET bottles, woven to fine thread (“silk”). It folds into its credit card size zippable sidepocket. Usually it lives in my day bag or jacket pocket. There’s also a thing called Notabag that looks interesting, but I don’t have one.
Jorg @5, good for Germany.
And, you reminded me of another good thing about bringing your own resuable bag or backpack. Those thin ones for produce? I just take the produce out when I unpack groceries and put the produce bags back into my shopping bags. Then, next time, put the produce into those instead of using new bags. The produce bags are resuable for a long, long time. (There’s also a store, but it’s kind of far away, that offers only paper bags for produce.)
Trickster Goddess @9, Katydid @11, you are right. Plastic particles will probably have lifetime in the hundreds/thousands of years range, plastic is so unreactive. And, no, plastic isn’t compostable--oil company liars--for the same reason: no bacteria (yet) can break those exceptionally strong and unreactive bonds.
Plastic particles have actually descended to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the deepest place in the ocean. Those molecules aren’t ever going to break down, no matter what. (Well, there is an extraordinarily expensive and rather dangerous method, but not realistic, especially for the volume we need to get rid of.)