What drives policies like this? Is this being led by Native American or indigenous groups? Is this a top priority in terms of lobbying effort?
In NJ, there's a new law going in effect that would ban single use bags state-wide, both paper and plastic. You won't even be able to buy a single use bag, but a more expensive and "re-usable" bag that is almost certain to be worse for the environment as you'd have to re-use it a lot to reduce waste.
These kinds of laws strike me as very out of touch with what typical Americans care about and think politicians should be doing. The bag law will be incredibly inconvenient, especially to people in urban areas that don't obsess about environmental politics. Even if you agree with the goals of these types of laws, they strike me as ineffective.
> The bag law will be incredibly inconvenient, especially to people in urban areas that don't obsess about environmental politics.
That's kind of the point. It's mildly inconvenient to change one's behaviour and keep reusable bags in the trunk of your car or at the bottom of your grocery backpack, so most people just don't bother until you force them to.
> Even if you agree with the goals of these types of laws, they strike me as ineffective.
On what are you basing your assessment that these types of laws are ineffective?
Sweden has some good examples of how these laws are counterproductive. When the "party for the environment" was in the government (they stepped out of it a number of months ago) they pushed through a high tax on plastic bags ($1 on normal shopping bags, $0.05 on those flimsy bags used for fruit and vegetables). They expected to get a lot of extra taxes this way (the true reason for the law) but were warned the net effect would be an increase in the use of fossil-fuel derived plastic. Why? Because Swedish plastic shopping bags are to a large extent - somewhere around 95% - made from renewable materials like sugarcane. Those bags were used to take home shopping after which they did double duty as garbage bags. The tax specifically targets shopping and produce bags, not just any plastic bag. The net effect is that people have started buying plastic garbage bags which, unlike those shopping bags, are made from fossil sources. They more or less stopped buying renewable shopping bags since nobody likes to be punished for doing the right thing, no matter how much that "party for the environment" thought they would. The plastic bag tax has not nearly brought in the amount they thought it would and has led to an increase in the use of non-renewable plastics and a decrease in the use of decomposable garbage bags. It also functions as a warning for any company which wants to invest in creating renewable plastics, the government can pull the rug from under your business any time.
These laws are not just ineffective, they are counterproductive.
The problem with these laws is not that they are ineffective, but they are not well defined experiments with predefined goals and measurements. It's impossible to run a modern, successful company without A/B testing, this should be expected from governments as well.
>Growing up on the San Manuel Indian Reservation in San Bernardino County, Assemblymember James C. Ramos said “squaw” was one of many disparaging terms hurled at his Native American community.
Regarding priorities, also from the article:
>Assembly Bill 2022, introduced by Assemblymembers Ramos (D-Highland) and Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) last month
It was introduced by two members of an 80 member legislative body. Clearly this is the top priority of the entire Californian government. /s
We have a single use Las here in WA. We are required to purchase the single use bag from the store. And the article user bag is actually multi use (typically 50 to 100 is) we use it once, I assume most people do. I can't believe this bag is better for the environment.
But for me, the worst part is, the store makes more money. I wouldn't mind so much if the 8 cent tax went into some sort of recycle or cleanup program. But to make the store richer, send wrong somehow
In NJ, there's a new law going in effect that would ban single use bags state-wide, both paper and plastic. You won't even be able to buy a single use bag, but a more expensive and "re-usable" bag that is almost certain to be worse for the environment as you'd have to re-use it a lot to reduce waste.
These kinds of laws strike me as very out of touch with what typical Americans care about and think politicians should be doing. The bag law will be incredibly inconvenient, especially to people in urban areas that don't obsess about environmental politics. Even if you agree with the goals of these types of laws, they strike me as ineffective.
https://cen.acs.org/policy/legislation-/New-Jersey-bans-plas...