Plastic Bag Bans Are Inequitable
By W. David Montgomery, PhD
The Town of Easton enacted a ban on disposable plastic bags about two years ago, with a mandatory ten-cent charge for each paper bag. It is an article of faith among a vocal minority that supporting the bag ban is a virtue right up there with temperance, justice, fortitude and prudence. That makes questioning the practical utility of the ban a task akin to rolling a large stone up a steep hill.
Two recent experiences should make the stone easier to roll. Checking out at our local Hallmark store, I was asked by the sales associate if I would like to pay ten cents for the usual tiny paper bag for my three birthday cards. I laughed and opined that I could get to my car without dropping one. On the way out, I reversed course to ask about the paper bag charge. The associate responded that the store had always given out paper bags for free and was now forced to charge for them. Neither the associate nor other customers seemed to be happy about that. A quick search turned up a price online of 2.5 cents each for a similar bag.
Just last week I was in line behind a young Hispanic man and his two children at a local department store. He was buying back-to-school clothes for them and the stack was approaching a foot high. The associate asked if they would like a bag for 10 cents, and the daughter – I guess around 9 years old – said yes.
Both these experiences are just wrong. Small businesses are being required to charge for paper bags that they have always used and given for free. Families who are stretching their resources to buy clothing for their children are taxed for the convenience of carrying their purchases without dropping them on the way. The mandatory charge for paper bags in itself imposes an unjust and inequitable burden on businesses and consumers alike.
The experience of other jurisdictions that imposed the same kind of ban on plastic bags reveals that the policies do not even achieve their claimed environmental benefits. The immediate objective of the combined ban and bag charge was to drive consumers to bring their own bags – typically multiple use plastic bags made from the same basic materials. The unintended consequence was to increase generation of plastic waste. The most popular type of reusable bag contains 20 times as much plastic as the banned bags, and it is not reused anywhere near often enough to offset that.
Starting, naturally, in California, this movement caught on in 500 other municipalities and 12 states. Recent studies revealed the unintended consequences of bans in California and New Jersey. California’s badly designed rollout significantly increased the generation of plastic bag waste. New Jersey thought to avoid the mistakes made by California but ran into a more fundamental problem of not anticipating how consumer responses could defeat its purpose.
California’s error was to ban use of single-use plastic bags but to allow substitution of thicker plastic bags thought to be reusable. Problem: they were also thrown away. The resulting increase in plastic waste is undeniable, though almost universally ignored by advocates.
The provisions of the New Jersey bag ban are almost identical to those adopted in Easton, but New Jersey’s is narrower in scope. It applies only to supermarkets, while in Easton the ban affects all retail. The New Jersey ban was adopted in 2015, so that a recent study had seven years of data to rely on.
That study concluded that from 2015-2022 the shift from disposable to reusable bags tripled polypropylene plastic consumption. Due to the larger carbon footprint of a polypropylene bag, greenhouse gas emissions (ie, CO2) increased by 40%. The Wall Street Journal editorialized that the bag ban is “a major inconvenience for state residents, and now a report suggests it has also been an environmental dud.”
The reason is very simple: reusable bags are discarded long before their higher plastic content is offset by reduced use of disposable bags. A nationwide study done by Clemson University researchers examined the number of times that reusable plastic bags were used before being discarded. It found that the majority of reusable bag users do not use their heavier plastic bags a sufficient number of times to achieve environmental gains. At best, Clemson concluded that if the heavier and more durable bags were reused the national average number of times, their environmental impacts would be about the same as the disposable bags they replace. It New Jersey, it is clear, they were not used that often.
Selling reusable plastic bags is a profitable business for the supermarkets that offer them. A quick look at a local supermarket showed heavy-duty reusable plastic bags being sold for $1.50 to $2.50 per bag. The study of the New Jersey ban found an average price around $1.50. At the same time, supermarkets avoided the cost of giving disposable bags for free. The net result in New Jersay was that “During 2022, retailers earned profit margins of 20-150% (60-70% on average) on sales of alternative bags, adding 1-2% to their bottom lines.” Not a bad deal, and in Easton those stores collect the ten-cent charge for paper bags as well.
One article claims that current bag bans nationwide have eliminated 6 billion plastic bags annually. Those groceries had to be removed from the store in some way. If the groceries were put into the same number of paper bags with a ten-cent charge, that would be a $600 million increase in grocery bills. According to Clemson, reusable bags hold about 50% more than disposable bags. If two-thirds as many reusable bags were purchased for $1.50 and used the national average of 14.6 trips, the result would be about a 7-cent charge per bag per trip and increase of about $400 million in grocery bills.
With proposals to put price controls on grocery stores a current political topic, even true believers in these plastic bag bans might have some sympathy for what they are doing to the cost of shopping for food and other essentials like clothing.
As far as Easton goes, the best policy would be to rescind the bag ban completely. It is an environmental dud and imposes inequitable burdens on businesses and consumers. If that is not politically attractive to enough Councilmembers, a next-best option would be to eliminate the cost, annoyance and inequities of the ten-cent charge per bag. If even that is too much, then we should at least emulate New Jersey and limit the bag ban and mandatory charge to supermarkets. The ban should never have been applied to small businesses that contribute only a small share of plastic waste in the first place.
In addition to trying to find time to be editor of the Chesapeake Observer, Dr. Montgomery is a Town Councilmember in Easton, MD. He welcomes commentary on this article in both capacities.
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A much needed great article David. Thank you for standing up for truth!
Aren’t we lucky to have you there!!
Mike McConnel
David, very well researched and written. I am all for reusable that make sense like my canvas bags that I have used for at least 20 years. This Easton ban makes no sense as you have clearly stated. We never throw away our canvas or insulated plastic grocery bags that are reusable indefinitely. Nonetheless the ban makes no sense and should be repealed. I prefer voluntary environmental steps like recycling aluminum cans, etc. at the drop off locations. Regulations like these are of no benefit. Tony Masso
Well said David. To have this intrusive , manipulative and burdensome policy in Easton is wasteful and sad. People should be free to make their own decisions about how many and what kind of bags they use. Such a relief when I’m in another town that doesn’t have our strange set of rules.
Good luck! My biggest concern is the germ factory that the heavier bags create. I throw them away.
I’ll take the other side of your argument. The plastic bag ban with Easton’s mandatory charge for paper bags is generally beneficial for the environment we live in and should be applauded, and expanded County-wide. The ban and the fee cut down on the harmful introduction of a non-beneficial product into our already overburdened world. Further, it seems to me that you have cherry-picked concerns about plastic bag bans to support your belief that the bans/fees don’t work. You failed to note that there is a large, unquantified environmental benefit to diminishing the amount of plastic entering the place we live in. You also failed to note that the single use plastic bags when discarded improperly break down into microplastics that we and every other living creature consume in the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. You also failed to note in your negative comment on so-called reusable plastic bags that such bags are basically one step above the single use plastic bags, which is why most consumers don’t distinguish between the two types, and accordingly, throw them away after one use. These so-called multiple use bags are simply a loophole in the ban, and should not be allowed. I would note that aside from paper bags, there are good reusable canvas, cloth, and truly multi-use plastic bags that can be used over and over in shopping for years and years. It just takes a consumer a minimal amount of forethought to carry them with him or her when shopping. Finally, reusable bags will save money for the less-fortunate shopper, who wouldn’t need to be worried about paper bag fees. Easton’s efforts should be commended, not condemned. Simple steps to clean our communities up should be encouraged by our political leaders. Comment
Thank you for a factual and well-reasoned response. I differ on the taxonomy of plastic bags. The Clemson study distinguished NWPP (non-woven polypropylene, bad) and WPP (woven polypropylene, good). I think the latter are what you call truly multi-use and I agree. But Clemson’s survey found that even WPP were not being reused long enough to be a net benefit, whereas the NWPP were a clear negative discarded after just 3 or 4 uses. I would like to continue but will be away from the keyboard for two weeks.