China bans plastic bags

Starting June 2008, China will ban shops from handing out free plastic bags. Wish we could get that done here!

I reuse paper bags until they are as soft as cloth, then use them one last time to bag my recycle paper. Amazing how often I have to stop the store clerks from putting products in individual plastic bags before they put them in my paper bag. Example: unscented soap is wrapped in plastic to prevent it from drying out, then packaged in cardboard box, but they want to put in a plastic bag!

I still am a big fan of Ireland's policy, that is, you want a plastic bag? You pay a five cent "tax" on it which goes into a fund to support parks and such. Perhaps I'm jaded, but I don't ever see a ban or a tax going over too well in the US--people here just feel too entitled. But yay for China.

We just got our 5-cet bag tax here in Maryland (USA). Finally! :)

That's great. I hadn't realized that 26 other states have done the same.
I mostly shop at the stores that encourage using their empty cardboard boxes, and always ask for paper bags elsewhere, as I too use them over and over again.

And I always unwrap my soaps to allow them to dry long before needing to use them - it lets them last longer than the producer intends.

Trying to find documentation of the news reporter's figure of 26 states with bans or tax already in place, and not finding it. Will report if I do.

My state's (West Virginia) legislature is considering a 5 cent tax on each plastic bag given to customers at grocery stores, pharmacies and convenience stores. The tax is not to be passed on to the consumer. Hmmm. This might encourage retailers to find alternatives, but I see several weaknesses.
1. There are many other retailers besides these three types which would be exempt. This isn't fair.
2. The public would not be enlisted in the campaign to find better ways of carrying purchases.
3. I wonder how the state will count up the tax owed - by taxing the retailers' purchases of bags, I suppose. Since that increases the bottom line expense, I don't see how it wouldn't be passed on to the consumer in indirect ways.

It sounds like Maryland taxes the consumer at the checkout line?

I think that one cent out of every 5 cents collected per bag goes to Maryland's coffers.

I know that DC has the same ban on plastic bags. They beat Montgomery County, Maryland to it.

Passing the tax on to consumers may simply make the public demand something better, so it could be a good idea. I know that many here in politically conservative NW Arkansas think primarily in terms of cheapness (this is Walmart country), so a tax that consumers must pay would make many more people refuse the plastic. I would be amazing to see Wally world without plastic bags (if I ever went in there).

> 6

Montgomery County, Maryland, now has a bag tax of 5 cents, too. Hooray!!

My alma mater will be charging a small fee for plastic bags after this spring break. They were giving out free reusable bags before break, so fair's fair.

Mendocino County in Northern California is now taking action to discourage the use of plastic bags. When they first took up the matter on a county level, no one had a strong opinion. This year, everyone on the County board was up to speed and the above initiative passed right away.

The House bill in WV never got through committee.

On January 1st, 2016, the Netherlands banned the distribution of free plastic bags. The European Union forces the Member States to take measures against the unbridled use of the plastic bag. From all the distributed bags, a significant part of them end up in the environment, and contribute to the plastic soup. It is the first legal action against the plastic soup taken by the Dutch government.

http://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/2016/01/ban-on-free-plastic-bags/

California passed a law to charge 10 cents for plastic or paper bags, the money going to the store. The plastic bag industry managed to buy enough signatures to put a repeal on the next ballot, which also automatically delays its implementation. But in the meantime local ordinances remain in effect so about a third of Californians pay extra for paper or plastic.

on one hand I like the tax idea, but then I need those bags to shovel cat litter into so...

>15 Bookmarque: bread bags.

Don't eat bread. Or pretty much any other processed food that might come in a bag.

Hm. Now I'm thinking of it, I could be recycling what little waste a whole foods diet produces. Frozen fruit comes in resealable bags that I could rinse and reuse. And...hmmm... Not sure what else. I'll have to put my mind to it, but I'm not so worried as the amount of trash we make has gone down substantially since we stopped the processed food.

Boy, ain't that the truth. You might enlist someone outside of your household to save bags for you. It would at least be a slight re-use of someone else's waste stream.

In South Africa supermarkets have had to charge for plastic bags for several years.

>1 oregonobsessionz: Starting June 2008, China will ban shops from handing out free plastic bags. Wish we could get that done here!

Oh, this is an old thread! Good for them, though! I wish plastic bags would be banned here (I'm in Alberta, Canada)! I've used reusable cloth bags for about 30 years! Not exclusively until about the past 10 years or so, but a good portion of the time for the 20 years before that, as well!

Ah, I see some comments on the 5 or 10 cents charged for each plastic bag in some places. Here, it's up to individual stores, so not very many places are doing that, as so many people complain. I don't get it - it's really not that difficult to carry around your own bag(s)!

I'm a bit confused by the NL thing stating 2016. NL, BE, and most places in Western Europe afaik, have had that in place for many years. Prior to 2008 at the least (which was my initial visit). Stores charge 5-10c for the crappy plastic bags if they have them, but most places have only the higher quality bags. Grocery stores generally have nicer plastic bags that are like 50c I think? as well as the proper reusable bags that I think are around €1, maybe €1,50. The cheaper version are still reusable, kind of more like the plastic bags that department stores in the US have, while the others are that thicker durable stuff, it's like stiff crinkly fabric, I think it's actually made from old plastic?

This sort of thing. Except our store at least, got smart and switched to proper handles on them. So yeah. Oh other places occasionally will have regular fabric tote bags, but those cost more so it's not as common.

I think for almost everything environmental, Europe is ahead of North America... my quite a bit. Now, I'm in Canada, so I can't say that from experience, just from stuff I've heard/read.

Yeah pretty much. The US particularly does not like to do anything that doesn't benefit big business, while in Europe there's proper laws & regulations that have the population's interests at their core.

Americans are also weirdly anti-government, and tend to be suspicious of any government regulation until it becomes tragically clear why it is necessary. Usually because a bridge collapses or an entire river system is polluted or something of that order.

>25 .Monkey.: The US particularly does not like to do anything that doesn't benefit big business

Sadly, this is pretty much how it is in Canada, as well. Well, with Justin Trudeau as prime minister, I'd hoped that might change, but so far, not so much...

>26 southernbooklady: Yup, for Canada, as well. :-( Certainly the province I'm in: Alberta. It's all about oil and gas...

>26 southernbooklady: Yep, that too. :|

I scavenge bags of leaves this season to mulch my gardens. And in one neighborhood, the homeowners just pile up mountains of leaves in the gutter. I keep the bags I collect and re-use them to carry the leaves home.

November 2016: California just passed a proposition banning plastic bags. Some of our propositions will be phased in through 2018, so we'll see what happens in January 2017. To celebrate, I bought a bunch of cotton string bags for the produce we buy.

>30 MaureenRoy: Good news! Just wish it could be expanded through the US and Canada!

>30 MaureenRoy: Actually, California passed a law last year I think and the plastic bag industry gathered enough signatures to force it onto the ballot as a referendum which failed. From what I've read it seems that it is now in effect but stores still seem to be offering plastic. Maybe they're allowed to use up the bags they already have?

jjwilson61 and everyone, good point about California stores possibly being allowed to use up the bags they already have. I will tell you all what I observe in California stores during 2016.

Boston City Council passes plastic bag ban

The numbers quoted don't seem to harmonize

"In Boston, 20 tons of plastic bags are thrown into the city’s single-stream recycling each month, O’Malley said, causing workers to spend hours each day removing bags from the equipment."

and

"Around the world, one trillion single-use bags will be used this year, and in Boston alone, that number is 357 million plastic bags."

Would 357 million plastic bags come close to weighing 240 tons?

But still, good for Boston!

Also, in October, Chile Bans Plastic Bags in 100+ Coastal Areas

"Our fish are dying from plastics ingestion or strangulation—it's a task in which everyone must collaborate," Bachelet said in a speech at the beach resort city of Pichilemu.

The Lowly Wax Worm May Hold The Key To Biodegrading Plastic

It's worth noting that the scientists haven't yet pinpointed how the worm chemically breaks down plastic. In fact, they said it may not be the worm itself doing the work, but a bacteria in its gut that starts the process.

Either way, identifying the enzyme responsible could have big ramifications for breaking down plastic waste.

eta the last bit of the article

And the wax worm discovery is still far from a solution to the world's piles of waste, says Susan Selke, director of the Michigan State University School of Packaging. "It's a long way from discovering something that can biodegrade polyethylene to creating a system where that biodegradation serves a useful purpose," she says.

Colwood, Vancouver is considering a plastic bag ban.

A letter to the editor brings up a couple of points worth discussing:

-bread bags
-reliance on plastic grocery bags for uses such as animal waste disposal. I know dog walkers carry them and drop the organic waste in whoever's trash can is handy. Parks and beaches offer rolls of plastic bags for dog walkers to keep the messes from underfoot.

Some cultural habits that might need to be re-examined.

I'm sure there are many other examples.

For dog bags, when she was young, my grandmother used to bring a wad of newspaper cut in 8th or so to pick up and wrap dog poops. She just throw them in her outhouse after she came home. I know not so many people use outhouse these days in metropolitan area, but we can use paper bags instead at least.

Bread bags... I don’t have an idea. I don’t want to share a bag with dogs for sure though.

>38 Yamanekotei: Funny, my first thought was newspaper, but paper bags make more sense!

>37 2wonderY: >38 Yamanekotei: We use biodegradable bags when we are out with our dogs, at home we compost their waste, so it goes back into the flower garden rather than to the landfill.

>40 wifilibrarian: Yes! That's where is belongs; not entombed forever in a landfill.

Since I don't buy plastic bags at all, I'm not familiar much with whether the biodegradable products work as advertised. I do know that some of the leaf bags I collect break down in about a year when left outside. But my experiment with a biodegradable plastic cup is proving it very durable.

Italy's roll-out of plastic bag ban makes many people unhappy

The government is requiring biodegradable and compostable bags for fruits, veggies and baked goods and the retailer must charge for the bags.

"Seeking to appease outraged consumers, the Health Ministry conceded on Thursday that consumers could bring their own biodegradable and compostable bags from home, as long as they had never been previously used."

So cloth or mesh bags aren't allowed, unless you plan to use them just the once.

What in hell was that moron thinking, with saying it's not hygienic to reuse reuseable bags?! Wtf idiot. Ugh. Otherwise it's a good thing. Once they get over that ridiculous point.

As for bread, maybe it's time for countries where that's an issue, to stop eating such preservative-filled breads and take a cue from Europe, where the bread is fresh daily, and you pick your loaf from the drawer-thing, put it in the slicer if you desire, and slide it into the slightly waxy-like paper bag.

And yeah I know people who use the bio bags for picking up after their dogs.

>42 2wonderY: "So cloth or mesh bags aren't allowed, unless you plan to use them just the once."
So it's getting ridiculous! Cloth and mesh bags are only worthwhile if you use them until they fall apart. And we do have to watch what's deemed biodegradable, vs compostable, vs home compostable. A lot of compostable bags are only compostable at commerical facilities. So look out for the words home compostable. Even then there's debate as to whether they are good for the environment.

>43 .Monkey.: that also happened in our country, with the increasing uptake of reusable bags over plastic bags at supermarkets, one of the right wing politicians was against it citing some research that showed there's 5 more deaths a year due to reusable bags. I think the deaths were because people put meat in them and didn't wash them, so got food poisoning. I wonder if the number of deaths attributed to this is fewer than the deaths caused by plastics building up in our environment, entering waterways and the food chain. Probably very hard to attribute.

*shakes head* Anyone who cannot understand simple cause & effect, or simple statistics, should not be allowed in office!

Practical advice about how to live without plastic
Author of new book offers tips on how to reduce ecological footprint
Isabel Teotonio | Living Jan 22, 2018

Since disposable single-use plastic items are a big part of the problem, what simple actions can people take to cut back?

What do you tell a newbie who's starting to cut back on their plastic consumption?

You suggest doing a plastic audit at home. What is that?

Any tips on being a smarter shopper at the grocery store?

How does one deplastify when it comes to household cleaning detergents, which are often in plastic containers or wrapping?

How do you minimize plastic in personal care products, such as soap, shampoo, deodorant?

How else can we cut our plastic usage?

https://www.thespec.com/living-story/8086556-practical-advice-about-how-to-live-...

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Life Without Plastic: The Practical Step-by-Step Guide to Avoiding Plastic to Keep Your Family and the Planet Healthy

Inspiring to review the products at
https://www.lifewithoutplastic.com/store/
(No doggie bags? :)

We have a plastic bag ban going into effect here:

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/victoria-city-council-gives-final-approv...

It goes into effect on July 1st, but some stores have already implemented it. It's progress but I remember the time when the stores had only paper bags.

>47 bkinetic: I like the pricing for the bags being offered. That encourages shoppers to establish a permanent bag collection. The exemptions list is very generous. Here's hoping the culture will adjust those as well.

What kind of lead up public awareness of the issue?