[waibelp]

I'm a little bit disappointed as the story just looks for new ways to get rid of the plastic problem. Why not produce and use less plastic? In the EU some countries ban plastic bags, others introduced or increased prices for bags. On the other hand more paper bags are available and prices for them dropped, too, resulting in more people using paper bags or starting to use cotton-bags.

[evgen]

The problem with solutions like this is that life is more complicated. Plastic bags are easy and energy efficient to produce and to ship to the end-user. Paper bags degrade incredibly poorly in the anaerobic environment of landfills and they use more energy for shipping to the end-user. IIRC, a paper bag that is not reused three times before being thrown away or recycled ends up using more energy and resources than the plastic bags being banned, and a high-density plastic bag needs to be reused 10 times, and a cloth bag needs to be used 150+ times to be better than low density plastic bags.

[adrianN]

Paper bags may use more energy, but they dissolve in the ocean instead of turning into microplastics and accumulating in the food chain.

[evgen]

They may dissolve in the ocean, but the US does not dump its garbage in the ocean. When you put them in a landfill the last for a very long time. A very, very long time. When people want to determine the age range from a core sample of a landfill then just look for paper because it does not degrade in an anaerobic environment.

[anonymous5133]

Agree. A lot of this has to do with habits. If you know that plastic bags are 10 cents each then suddenly you quickly learn to always bring 10 reusable bags with you to save the money.

[lucaspiller]

It’s been like this where I live for 5 years and I still don’t remember to take plastic bags back to the store...

[usrusr]

Mostly I have just gotten very good at balancing a surprising number of items on my body while walking out of the store.

(and I started long before we got a plastic bag fee, fresh bags rarely crossed my personal convenience/waste threshold and I still happily pay when they do)