Vermont plastic bag use dropped 91% following ban, researchers find
Vermont plastic bag use dropped 91% following ban, researchers find | Gund Institute for Environment | The University of Vermont
I wish we could federalize a ban on single use plastics.
Yeah these plastic bag laws were a convenient way to make people feel like something was done and the problem was solved. We've moved on. It's "uplifting news". Mission Accomplished.
Where are the efforts to reduce the other 99% of single use plastic waste in the grocery store? It's full of plastic bottles of water most people could do without, bags of candy where each individual piece is also wrapped in plastic, you can find this shit in every aisle.
And the irony is that I actually reused the plastic bags that got banned, whereas the paper bags aren't useful and get thrown out. Now if I want small plastic bags I have to buy them. The plastic grocery bags were good for daily cat litter disposal and other small trash can lining.
Can't paper bags be recycled more easily, or even composted?
I get your perspective, and I'm frustrated that I have to buy garbage bags now.
But my household(s) always ended up with more plastic bags than we could reuse. And before the ban, plastic bag litter was far, far more commonplace.
imo, a good middle ground might've been to charge for plastic bags and use that money to fund the cleanup and recycling of plastic bags. But that's more reactive than proactive, and it'd place disproportionate burden on the lower classes who can't take on the higher costs as easily as wealthier people.
I thought they specifically were a particularly common thing to blow into waterways or something, in ways that plastic bottles etc. weren’t? [citation needed]
If you reuse old plastic bags, how does this ban on stores giving them away even affect you?
I mostly agree with this
those grocery bags always had another purpose and got used several times, or at minimum just once as a garbage bag
now I have to buy dedicated bags, which are much more material per bag. and there's still basically nothing being done about all of the plastic waste in single use products that account for much much more material usage, like water bottles as you said.
I will admit that seeing trees full of plastic bags on a windy spring day after the snow has melted is pretty disheartening. but I don't think it's any more disheartening than the plastic trash strewn across the parks and near the garbage cans, and arguably the bags are even easier to clean up.
like yay we got rid of thin plastic bags that had multiple uses, and every fucking vegetable in the grocery store is wrapped in plastic or in a plastic container
Hard to continue using plastic bags when you ban them
We need researchers to validate to us that use of plastic bags was almost eliminated after they were banned? I mean... Y'all could've just asked me. I would've told y'all, "yes. Yes, they are used less now."
I’m not certain that the plastic replacements for single use plastic bags are all they’re cracked up to be. But it’s good to move in the direction of eliminating this source of long term pollution.
For me, the 10¢ plastic bags are much thicker plastic: convenient for me, worse for the environment. Historically I tried to reuse grocery bags for trash but they long since got too cheap for that, but now I don’t want to spend the 10¢. It would be good to know what the payback threshold is: how many times do I need to reuse them before it was a good tradeoff.
It’s probably disgusting that I never clean them: if they get a spill just throw them out. My replacement rate is governed by my mistake: did I remember to bring them? Did I accidentally recycle them?
Reusable cloth bags seem like the thing to do but I have no idea how to find them. Everything online is made of “nonwoven material” which has got to be a euphemism for plastic
We get “cloth” bags made of plastic that’s ostensibly recycled. They’ll last for quite a long time.
Stores hand them out for a small fee if you forget your bags. But now I’ve got approaching a hundred because I’m terrible at remembering bags and I don’t have options when I get to the till. So they’re really disposable to me because I just have too many.
Not cleaning them definitely is a problem; I wash them occasionally but it’s kinda gross to think about. Some have a base in them that needs to be taken out and that makes it even less frequent that they are washed. As they’re used and when they’re washed they shed microplastics.
I’d like paper better, if I knew with certainty that the forest that was harvested to create, the pulp was actually intended for pulp, instead of being some old growth forest that a forestry company has green washed. Then, there’s a fair bit of nasty chemicals, involved in the paper making process.
I have a few cotton bags, which are fantastic, because they are easily washed, hold a great deal of weight, and definitely last longer than the plastic versions.
Is that a glass pun?
Just watched a video of someone exploring a mansion that was abandoned in the 2000s. Eventually they got to the kitchen and found a cupboard that was stuffed full of used plastic bags and I was like, 'Huh, that definitely was a thing.'
Bonus fact: A plastic bag that is caught high up in a tree that rustles in the wind are called 'Witches Britches ' in some regions.
We banned those in my city in 2018. Honestly, the only downside is that now we have to actually buy garbage/cat litter bags. I also have enough reusable bags to shove some in ever single purse/jacket pocket I own so I'm never without.
The bag ban has been amazing here in NJ. I want them to go further with it. So sick of all the bullshit plastic litter everywhere I go.
Checkout !newjersey@lemmy.world if you haven’t already! It’s been too quiet over there.
Oh I subscribe, I’m one of the few commenters. I should probably post more.