Which isn’t the individual single use plastic bags every single item comes in.
It’s just the one final plastic bag, all the other plastic bags are carried in.I don’t have a problem with the move myself. I’m single, with a supermarket just up the street. I use my own hand basket for my groceries. I never even use a cart.
But this policy always strikes me a tackling the smallest, least effective part of the problem. Banning plastic packaging would be FAR more effective. But also much harder. So this is just a way for politicians to seem like they are doing something, when they really aren’t. In other words it’s pandering.Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Like @TheTechnician27@lemmy.world said, this is closing a loophole that was in the original grocery bag reduction law.
I’m saying it shouldn’t be praised as a solution, but recognized as a very small step forward. Afterwhich we ramp up the pressure for real solutions.
No, no, they’ve expended their political capital on this and that’s about all we’ll get from them, but just as long as someone tells you to not let perfect be the enemy of good, you must be satisfied with the outcome even if it achieves little to nothing.
Arguing against it or pointing out flaws means that you’re now arguing against “what’s good” and that’s morally and ethically wrong and shows that you’re an outsider to the in-group.
I don’t think anyone is calling this the single solution to anything.
It’s simple another small step on the path.
Take enough steps and you’ll keep moving towards a goal
California has been working toward legislation that reduces plastic in packaging. It’s not as good as it should be, but it represents about as much departure from the status quo I think California can reasonably get when people raise so much fuss over even superfluous things like plastic straws and grocery bags (and because California is already really throwing around their weight here in compelling out-of-state producers to change their manufacturing). And this new law is just closing a loophole on a 2014 law that at worst was actively making things worse or at best was making the law fail to address the issue. This isn’t “pandering”; it’s addressing a real, ongoing, actual issue in a sensible way.
Excellent! That should be bigger news than this little stuff.
We can’t afford to think like this. Climate is such an unthinkably massive issue that we need all of it, and then some more, and then some more.
There is no project big enough that we don’t need 50,000 more projects of equivalent scope to get things where they need to be.
Think like what? Think this is just one small pice. Small enough that it almost doesn’t matter, and shouldn’t take any energy or news inches from the larger problem of plastic packaging? Because honestly, it sounds like we’re on the same page there.
Also plastics aren’t much of a climate issue. They’re part of a more broad environmental issue.
It might be unclear if you’re advocating a comprehensive plastic policy, or whataboutism directed at just one other use of plastic.
Yeah. The whole shit-show is depressing really.
Firstly, you’re entirely correct - it’s a tiny part of the problem.
Secondly, it shifts the “blame” for plastic on to consumers. “Oh we’ve been so bad all this time using plastic shopping bags”.
Thirdly, it provides a feeling of resolution. “I’m so happy now we’ve done the hard work to buy these $0.10 reusable shopping bags and solved the plastic problem”.
Fourthly, you have to wonder how many plastic shopping bags were actually single use. For example, a lot of them were made from recycled plastic, and a lot of them were re-used as garbage bags, which are now purchased anyway.
On balance, I think it’s within the realm of possibility that these laws do more harm than good. Honestly, just tax plastic producers and see how quickly producers using plastic to package their products magically fine innovative new alternatives.
to buy these $0.10 reusable shopping bags
This literal exact sentence tells me you didn’t read past the headline; those shitty $0.10, thicker “reusable” plastic bags are exactly the loophope in the 2014 ban that this 2024 law is designed to close. The thing you’re accusing this law of allowing people to do is the one thing it expressly outlaws. Media literacy is dead.
On balance, I think it’s within the realm of possibility that these laws do more harm than good. Honestly, just tax plastic producers and see how quickly producers using plastic to package their products magically fine innovative new alternatives.
Seriously. The way to solve this is to simply put a tax on all plastic packaging. Use those funds to subsidize plastic recycling. Set the tax at whatever level is necessary to make recycling viable. And if the most viable ‘recycling’ method is to just burn the plastic in an incinerator, so be it. Yeah, it’s expensive to build an industrial incinerator that can properly scrub and filter out all the nasty fumes plastic gives off when it’s burned. But it can be done. It’s more expensive than just stuffing the plastic in a landfill, but by burning it, we solve our plastic problem in the here and now, rather than letting it slowly leach out into the environment for future generations to deal with.
Recycling plastic will always be difficult, and it may never be practical for some cases. But all plastics burn. And if you have the right incinerator, they can be burned without releasing toxic fumes into the air. Tax plastic packaging, all of it. Tax it, and use the funds to subsidize plastic waste incineration. Plastic is made from oil, and it still can be used as a fuel. Burn it and be done with it.
I wouldn’t limit it to plastic packaging. Micro-plastics come from all plastic.
Packaging is more effective to ban but also a lot more nuanced. Plastic packaging was developed over a lot of years and the products are designed for it so it would need to be a much longer term project.
All the more reason to advocate for it, and not be distracted by a nearly meaningless win.
What do you do wrt vegetables? I always end up using those thin plastic bag to wrap them, even uf I bring a big reusable bag to carry it all out
I have a hand-held basket I got more than a decade ago from Staples. I just put all the loose fruit and veg in that.
Looking at comments outside of Lemmy, I’m appaled by the number of people shocked by this already. Apparently, “just reuse your f-ing bags” is already too hard for a lot of people. We need to start from the easiest.
Banning these plastics is not about environmentalism. It’s about litter and having visually cleaner cities.
It seems easy to argue liter is part of environmental concerns and policy. Environment is a very flexible term.
deleted by creator
Original Associated Press article instead of giving traffic to Voice of America
Edit: and a good LA Times article explaining the glaring flaw with the original 2014 law.
Thank you!
Yeah np; VOA is I feel overall pretty tame as national propaganda outlets go, but it’s nonetheless expressly conceived of and funded as a propaganda outlet, so that’s not much of a compliment.
Plus, a news agency article from its own website tends to have a better shelf life than syndicated versions of that article.
VOA seems very factual and accurate in their reporting. Their bias exists in that they’ll never report on something that doesn’t align with US interests.
We did it a while back, you will adapt pretty quickly.
In Austin we had a ban. The state overrode it a year later, but the damage was done…everyone realized how much easier it is to carry groceries in large tote bags that you can sling over your shoulder.
Or boxes; we use boxes. Carrying 3 - 4 boxes up stairs is much easier than 10 bags.
One time, I went to a small, family-owned grocery store that used cardboard boxes, and I can totally attest to this. The boxes are a transcendental experience.
Most NZ supermarkets just stack the boxes at the front after the checkout.
Are also keep a few in the back of the car.
I have giant tote bags and can usually fit almost all my groceries in one. Slinging that over my shoulder is easier to carry than boxes
I have 3 hungry boys to feed, I’m not sure I could carry all of our groceries in one trip. , 😁
Portland’s done it too. If you want plastic bags, they’re big and reusable and fairly expensive. Paper is really the only option at most places now. That said, I really wanna see the reusable cheap plastic ones banned, cause no one really reuses them.
They banned single use a decade ago. My family switched to reusable bags. A lot of stores realized that they could sell “reusable” plastic bags, thicker single use bags, and get around the law.
So the rollout went like this, stores gives you free plastic bags your entire life, about a week where people were told “no plastic bags, you gotta bring your own,” then the plastic bags were back but a bit different and the store would sometimes charge you a bag fee (although a lot of places effectively waived the fee). This meant that no one adapted and they continued doing what people had always done with their plastic bags, sone reuse, mostly discard.
People always complain about unintended consequences of laws, I’ve always gotten the impression from those people they would prefer we don’t make the laws. I would love it though if we could iterate on our laws faster than, pass the law, every company finds a loophole a week later, close loophole after a decade of unintended consequences.
And yea, having reusable bags is not difficult.
I just wish they would ban the plastic bags and force paper bags. The thick plastic bag problem came from not mandating paper only. Plus a lot of those polyester bags were so poorly made, they didn’t last long enough to male a difference.
Maybe it’s just me wanting to go back to the stores of my youth when plastic was a rarity.
As long as it also requires them to carry paper bags that’s perfect
In my country (Jamaica) you either have to beg to use their old boxes from inventory or just carry it all out by hand if you forget your bags.
Canada works pretty well without them. If you forget your bags though you have to buy more.
I keep several reusable bags and I’ve almost never had to use the paper ones. The few times I have, the bags fell apart halfway home lol.
In France they didn’t always have bags available, and if they did they were usually for sale and were reusable. Everyone just brought their own bags.
The best places keep a pile of all of their cardboard boxes by the registers, so you can grab one or two or ten depending on how much you’re buying. I only get paper bags if they’re out of boxes or I need more trash bags.
If they don’t just tell them you need help to your car.
As long as you don’t expect them to be free
Didn’t we already do this like five years ago? I haven’t seen a plastic shopping bag in a long time.
edit: single use plastic bags, this appears to be targeting the reusable ones too.
Grocery Outlet in IB and CV both offer plastic bags to me even as I am putting my backpack, or one of their reusable bags on the counter.
Not sure about north of San Diego, though.
I realized after commenting that the new law includes the reusable ones with the thicker plastic too, not just the single-use ones I was thinking about. I’m up in Riverside these days and I always take my groceries home in a cardboard box or two, for the record, so this probably won’t change anything for me.
For anyone wondering why a new law would target reusable bags as well, the phrasing of the old law basically encouraged stores to replace single use plastic bags with reusable plastic bags. Reusable bags use more plastic so they’re sturdier and last longer, but they were treated as single use bags anyways so functionally we were just producing and subsequently wasting more plastic.
I haven’t read this new law but hopefully it encourages or requires actually using paper bags or cardboard boxes or something if you don’t have your own reusable bag. It would be a shame if it just kicks the can down the road again and people buy reusable bags in the checkout aisle that they throw away when they get home instead of keeping in the car.
Crafty people: If you don’t already, you should learn about plarn, aka yarn made from cut up disposable plastic shopping bags.
My wife makes it and turns it into forever bags.
I’m sorry.
If you want to make them, for the sake of making them. As an art project or something, that’s fine I guess.
But as a functional blanket? That seems like the worst thing I can imagine.Ok? First of all, the site says that it uses plarn for part of the weaving. Secondly, you don’t have weave with it or make a blanket. As I said, my wife knits them into forever bags.
Great to see this. I have not seen someone bring their own bags except me in months.
Great! Now do other 49.
They’re on their own. Pretty sure Texas likes the poison.
Yes in 2018, the TX Supreme Court struck down plastic bag bans in Laredo even though the small city was saving something like $250,000/year in waterway cleanup. The other cities, including Austin, that had a plastic bag ban lifted their ban after the court ruling.
It was great under the bag ban, the cities were so much cleaner. Grocery stores all had some thicker Reusable plastic bags that could be bought and would hold up for a long time as long as you didn’t overfill them. They also sold cloth bags, not to mention the people carrying Ikea bags around the stores.
Those thicker bags suck, it’s just even more plastic. That’s what California just banned and I’m so happy.
Yeah the ticker bags that would last a year or so before the handles fell off were more plastic, but it was at least a step. I saw more people using cloth and other sturdy Reusable bags after a few months.
Colorado has had this law for a couple years now
Austin tried years ago and Texas said no.
Hawaii hasn’t had plastic bags for almost a decade at this point. Styrofoam takeout containers have also been banned since around COVID.
Some stores let you buy a paper bag for a few cents, otherwise it’s reusable bags you bring. Takeout containers have all transitioned to cardboard or PLA containers.
We did this in Austin, and I hate it. It’s probably fine if you go to the store and use your own totes, but my situation requires that I have to get my groceries delivered, so that isn’t an option for me. And instead of plastic bags which I could crumple up to take up near-zero space and actually reuse, my house is filled with enormous paper bags that have already ripped before I got the groceries up the stairs in the first place and take up tons of space and have basically zero reuse value and go straight into the trash after one use. I used to reuse plastic shopping bags all the time; waste basket liners, collecting random odds and ends to throw away together, organizing and storing dozens of random cables and chargers, etc.
I wish there was a better way to dispose of plastic bags. Because while I understand the reasonings for the ban, the result is majorly inconvenient and ironically results in more single-use products in my life.
One possible suggestion, is it possible for you to get a reusable collapsing basket to keep downstairs for carrying groceries?
I use a single plastic bag for few months, it fits in a back pocket if you fold it nicely, and it’s rainproof. All the fabric ones make a bulge in the pocket or don’t fit at all.
While single-use packaging isn’t always ideal, we aren’t exactly fighting a battle with micro-paper pollution. It biodegrades comparatively simply.
There was a plastic bag ban here* in my state. Still is technically. The only problem is the idiots who shoved this through left exceptions/loopholes that allowed basically every technically rural place here able to keep using plastic bags as long as they’re “reusable” which basically just made much thicker plastic bags be the norm. It’s fucking stupid and we need to forever go back to paper.
Nah, fabric. And more grocery stores but smaller and locally owned so people don’t need to do a bunch of shopping at once. And proper pay and worker protections and price controls so people can afford to have time to shop
In Seattle we did this years ago. In practice, people just treat the new “reusable” bags as disposable. This law is a stop gap and ultimately kicks the can down thr road to placate business interests and the bullshit plastic lobby.
Bring on the downvotes, folks, but the reality is that now people will be throwing away thicker plastic.
Those are the bags this law bans.
In Hawaii every county did it independently around 10 years ago. Some counties have done it better than others. I don’t think I’ve had a single plastic bag on the big island in that entire time, but when I’m on Oahu I occasionally get them (for example the Apple Store thicker plastic bags that are “reusable”—somewhat true).
I don’t see people treating reusable bags as disposable, but it’s also completely acceptable here to just bring a cart full of stuff unbagged from target to your car here if you didn’t bring bags (groceries people will get paper if they forgot). I don’t think that’s as acceptable other places.
In Austin, most grocery stores switched to paper and sold canvas when we had our ban. Only Texas’ beloved H‑E‑B decided to sell thick plastic replacement bags and has continued to do so post-ban. Hopefully the California law counts these stupid thick bags as plastic in their ban.
Those stupid thick bags are exactly the 2014 loophole that this 2024 ban is closing.
Yeah no. Plastic bags given in the UK were around 8.5 billion in 2014, which reduced to under half a billion by 2023 just from introducing a charge.
That doesn’t line up with my experience. Canada banned single-use bags in 2023, and I notice a lot less reusable bags discarded on the street than the single-use ones before the ban.
That depends on how Canada implemented their plastic bag ban.
California’s ban allowed “reusable” bags, which the plastics industry interpreted to produce bags that looked a lot like the thin single use bags, but of thicker plastic, and consumer habits weren’t changed by much.
So now instead of having plastic bags that can be re-used to line small trash bins or dispose of cat litter or pick up dog poo in the park, people need to buy single-use plastic garbage bags. Smart.
Can you honestly say that you actually use most of those bags? If you do, you’re in an extreme minority. I throw away the ones with holes (a good chunk of them) because they can’t be used as garbage bags (and they’re notoriously difficult to recycle making most jurisdictions not even accept them; grocery stores who “take” them will often just send them to places like grocery warehouses which will unceremoniously throw them away). But despite the fact that I’ve been using my own bags for months only occasionally supplementing them with the thin, plastic store-provided ones when I physically don’t have enough and the fact that I’m choosy with them, I still have a backlog of literal hundreds of shitty little plastic grocery bags sitting under my sink from when I didn’t have my own bags. The cat litter or dog poop thing assumes that the person with the bag owns a cat or a dog (less than 60% in California, and this is still overgenerous because cats and dogs aren’t the only pets) and that most of them use their grocery bags for waste disposal, which doesn’t seem realistic.
That’s not even including the gargantuan amount of bags that go to waste before you even get your hands on them. I can’t tell you in my short time working at a grocery store how many bags get thrown away because they’re defective or get ripped. I vividly remember multiple times getting a stack of literal hundreds of bags that’s supposed to go on a bag rack, and a defect across the entire “ream” meant that I couldn’t situate it on the rack correctly. Those all went straight into the trash.
I use all of the ones I get as trash bags. If they ban them here I’ll have to buy small plastic bags instead of reusing the ones from groceries. Either way it’s going to be the same amount of plastic, only now I’ll be paying extra.
Not the op, but we do use them in my house too. We use every one that we get. We can line them with paper (we collect our junk mail paper for this purpose) to prevent leaks if there happen to be any tiny holes.
Use a bag daily during dinner prep to collect all the food trash and packaging and stuff that needs to be moved to the main trash can. Also use them as small trash bags in the bathroom and bedrooms.
Using one bag every single day for dinner prep just to put its contents in the “main” bin seems wildly inefficient compared to just having a larger bag in your kitchen or bringing those same contents to the trash via a reusable bucket. Using bags inefficiently is better than not using them at all, but it still suggests a net benefit from banning store-issued plastic grocery bags. Having such easy access to them incentivizes people to reuse them in frivolous ways if they even reuse them at all, and I think this illustrates that.
It is somewhat ineffecient spacewise. But my area tends to have fruit fly problems during the summer, so we use the smaller plastic bags to more tightly seal food waste to keep fruit flies from getting to it. Also reduces odors from the trash
people need to buy single-use plastic garbage bags.
or maybe they really don’t? not every bit of trash needs to be contained in a tiny plastic bag.
edit: for example, instead of dedicated bag for cat litter I can usually fit it in a partially empty large trash bag from around the house (as I take it out to the toter). And for dog poop I buy corn-starch based biodegradable bags.
At the least the garbage bag could be made of biodegradable or plant-based plastic.
The road to mitigating climate change and pollution will be filled with small inconveniences. In the grand scheme of things, is it really that big of a deal to spend a few cents on bags that are much more likely to end up properly disposed of to reduce the outsized amount of plastic bag litter and energy/oil spent on creating said bags?
We tried that. It failed.
When was that? I remember the vote where it was an option and it didn’t win. Instead we got the joys of paying $0.10 per bag and thicker bags.
But is bringing your own bags with you so hard? My parents are too old remember that but I never had an issue with it.
But is bringing your own bags with you so hard?
I have ADHD so yeah, sometimes. I even keep them in my car and often forget to bring them inside to actually use 'em 😩
When I do that I just put it all back in a cart and bag it at my car
That’s a you problem though. The grocery store isn’t making you forget you’re about to walk into their store.
I didn’t claim it was their problem in the first place.
I’m just saying, you can go back to your car and get your bags.
Edit. And I’ve been scrolling and putting off going to the store for like an hour now. Thank you for getting me to get off my butt lol
I do exactly the same all the time too.
Then I walk back out to my car, grab my basket, and curse silently at myself the whole way.
Yes it is too hard for people. I almost never see people bring their own bags in my small town of California.
It’s worth noting that as of the 2020 Census, 94.2% of Californians reside in urban areas (5000+ people or 2000+ housing units). If you really do live in a small town, it might be highly unrepresentative of the behavior of the state at large. This could be anything from different average distances to grocery stores, frequency of trips and weight/volume of items purchased per trip, means of transportation, wealth, and political attitudes that would all affect one’s consistency with using their own bags.
I’m not stating that it definitely doesn’t translate but that caution should be exercised when talking about small towns in such an urbanized state.
Agreed with this. I go back and forth between Sacramento and the Bay Area. I havent had to use single use bags in years at groceries and neither do the people I see.
I juat chuck stuff in the back seat of my Cherokee, works well for sodas.
Grocery bags were banned. Durable “reusable” plastic bags were mandated and we were expected to re-use those bags and return them to the store. The reality is that we use them just like the old bags and just fork over the extra 10 cents for every visit.
This article is claiming the exact same thing, replacing the current “re-usable” bags with more durable “re-usable” bags that we will likely now pay 20 cents for and be expected to re-use them at the store.
That sounds like a problem that you’re inflicting on yourself then.
I’m not sure this is going to be any more effective than the original (ineffective) ban. Maybe I’m biased because I don’t like carrying bags around so I am accumulating more and more “reusable” bags that I never reuse.
Tons of places haven’t had plastic bags for years. It’s definitely effective.
According to the article, the use of plastic for bags has actually gone up despite the ban.
The reason it went up since the 2014 law is because of a massive, gaping loophole. It was written with plastic industry bullshit baked in, and now it’s being taken out.
Everyone were I live has used cloth or paper bags for at least the past five years. The only places that have plastic bags are corner stores.
I do find myself shopping at corner stores a little more than I used to, specifically because they have plastic bags. I wonder if they’re exempt from the law or just ignore it.
Could be a size of the business restriction. That’s a good question.
The plastic bags you could get at Ralphs are thick. So thick I bring them back to CO and use them as reusable bags in my work truck, trash bags for the trail, etc. I don’t have a scale that could measure the difference but it must be 6-8x as much plastic per bag.
Whole Foods has been using paper bags for years. And they don’t charge for them either.
it just requires a minimal amount of effort and foresight. you can do it.
But what if I’m extremely stupid?
good. My balls are already maxed out on microplastics
Microplastic is stored in the balls
Mine are stored in the toenails, Mountain Dew is stored in my balls.
Might need to get that looked at
