Thank you all for listening, and Ill see you next week. There are also some challenges regarding the design of such a policy, as Dr. Taylor explains. Any time someone needs bags, make a trip to the back to get them and have them wait. Again, Im not referring to carbon emissions, Im talking nitrous oxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, smog, Sagittariuses, really bad stuff. But if communicated to the public well, I think its an interesting idea, and Id be curious to see if a similar approach could work with bags. But what if reusable bags arent good either? Single-Use Plastics 101 - NRDC In fact, 79 percent of microplastics sampled in the marine environment originated from polyethylene specifically. Before I jump in, were trying out a little bit of a different format today. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy. 12 Compelling Reasons For Banning Plastic Bags [2023 Update] - MindsetEco Did you just finish trick or treating? The adverse impacts of plastic bags are undeniable: When theyre not piling up in landfills, theyre blocking storm drains, littering streets, getting stuck in trees, and contaminating oceans, where fish, seabirds, and other marine animals eat them or get tangled up in them. Banning plastic bags is great for the world, right? - Classytutors And beyond that, ethylene itself is a dangerous pollutant. California and Hawaii banned them, then New York. There was a 72 percent drop in grocery bag litter in the state just one year after it was fully implemented. bags, or maybe even stop keeping bags at the register at all. ETHAN: And the list of policy approaches goes on and on. Bag bans cut this litter off at the source: In San Jose, California, a plastic bag ban led to an 89 percent reduction in the number of plastic bags winding up in the citys storm drains. Another entirely different approach could be making plastic bags more sustainable. But University of Sydneys Dr. Rebecca Taylor says not so fast. Now, obviously, there are still benefits of reducing our consumption of plastic. New York State and Hawaii just passed theirs, set to go into effect in 2020, and California's bag ban, which was passed in 2014, has been shown to have reduced plastic bag usage by 85 percent . In addition to being my celebrity couple name with a girl named Polly, polyethylene is a string of carbon and hydrogen atoms. A Canadian Gas Field Is Polluting First Nation Communities, How Climate Change, Poverty, and Social Stigma Affect Menstrual Hygiene. The Massachusetts proposal may not become law this year, but its the latest sign that the plastic bag industry is losing this war. Some social justice activists who work in low-income urban neighborhoods or communities of color also argue that plastic bags are a particular scourge. The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. Summary Response to Adler's Essay .docx - Banning Plastic In the last couple weeks, I believe around five of our team members got sick, so weve been struggling a little bit! YouTube, Follow us on Take two minutes, help out the show, and get a shoutout at the end of the show by leaving a five star rating and a review on Apple or Podcast Addict OR join our Patreon at patreon.com/thesweatypenguin. A pound of cotton requires more than 5,000 gallons of water on average, a thirst far greater than that of any vegetable and even most meats. ETHAN: Why does all that matter? Already in Massachusetts, 32 towns and cities have passed bag bans or fees. And if not, then maybe totes arent the best alternative. But are bans on plastic bags or reusable alternatives like tote or canvas bags viable solutions to the worlds plastic problem? Hopefully its not laced with xylene! However, it cannot be argued that they are the only components that contribute to Earth's many environmental problems. Every time you need to process a new batch of polyethylene, you bring it to the facility and say, Polly want a cracker?. 1- Out of all the bags that are currently available in the market, plastic bags are the most convenient for consumers. And beyond that, ethylene itself is a dangerous pollutant. Obtain that grain. People still need bags to bring home their groceries. Every so often, our star fires off a plasma bomb in a random direction. LASZLO: Oh, alright, if itll shut you up. "Exactly what happens to a plastic bag when it is littered depends very much on where it enters the environment and the mechanisms that cause it . Thats where this gets interesting. CLIP: Its been more than five years since single-use plastic bags like these were banned from grocery stores, a ban advocates say made strides for the environment. Two weeks ago, the Massachusetts State Senate passed a measure that would ban plastic bags from being dispensed by many retail businesses and require a charge of 10 cents or more for a recycled paper or reusable bag. Cause of environmental pollution 2. So I often tell people, if theyre choosing a bag, you want to choose a bag that you are going to reuse that could be a thin bag, then plastic bag, or it could be a nylon bag, which is technically still plastic, but is a woven plastic thats fairly lightweight, and thus, perhaps not going to have the same environmental impact as a heavier plastic or a cloth bag. The reasons for papers higher carbon footprint are complex, but can mostly be understood as stemming from the fact that paper bags are much thicker than plastic bags. Not So Fast Like cigarettes, plastic bags have recently gone from a tolerated nuisance to a widely despised and discouraged vice. Plastic bag bans are spreading. But are they truly effective? The Search for Long Covid Treatments Takes a Promising Turn. Now, a new law hopes to take things a step further by banning these: single-use plastic pre-checkout bags that are not recyclable and can contaminate compost facilities. ETHAN: Seven of those 16 projects were related to ethylene or polyethylene, including the five highest polluters of the group. Banning Plastic Bags Is Great For the World Right Questions 1-5.docx [wrong buzz] Aw, dammit, I was so close! The past and future are tightly linked in conventional quantum mechanics. Right now! As the Australian study noted, a cotton bag has major environmental impacts of its own. Heres just one tiny example: Does the paper for paper bags come from a recycled paper mill on Staten Island or a virgin forest in northern Canada? Our world faces increasingly severe hurricanes, wildfires, floods, heat waves, and more, but grocery bags have somehow become one of the hottest environmental topics. Amid fracking boom, Pennsylvania faces toxic wastewater reckoning. ETHAN: So just to wrap up this point, would you say that its a net positive or negative? So I was really interested to see what the data would say about this were people having to buy more garbage bags now that the plastic bags that they got from grocery stores were no longer available. In all seriousness, theres drawbacks here too. And honestly, a little sketchy that ethylene cant handle sunlight. I personally dont care much what kind of bag my groceries are in, Id even take a Hello Kitty bag if it meant my eggs got home without breaking, but Im sure some people really love their plastic bags, and for those that do, this is certainly an intriguing possibility. Monthly or one-time, donate now when all donations will be matched by a generous group of donors. We use. And the question that I had was, how does banning this plastic carry out bag affect the use of other types of plastic bags, and in particular, garbage bags, because as a consumer myself, I knew that I reused many of my carry out grocery bags as garbage bags. You can order the T-shirt plastic bags in wholesale from Bags . But not just anywhere. You can conceive of the possibility of collecting plastic bags from the ocean, but microplastics are almost impossible to remove from their environments. TAYLOR: Its a great question, I would say its a bit nuanced, because that was just respect with respect to the plastic bags. Does it get recycled? But theres also so much nuance to this issue, and its important to consider these consequences of bag bans as we come up with the best possible solutions. ETHAN: That new ban was signed into law on September 30, and the fact that it was in the news goes to show that even with all the other things going on in the world, people are paying attention to this issue. Anyway, at a cracker plant, they use extreme heat to crack the molecular bonds in the oil or gas to produce a new gas called ethylene. The first time you say your dog ate it, its a funny story, but by the fifth time, youre definitely going to fail first grade. Only 2.4 percent of the worlds cropland is planted with cotton, yet it accounts for 24 percent of the global market for insecticides and 11 percent for pesticides, the World Wildlife Fund reports. The Bad Astronomer Takes You on a Tour of the Cosmos. And do you think that it is more broadly true that cracking down on one specific plastic product can have rebound effects with other plastic products, or is this maybe a more isolated case that you found? So when you do lifecycle assessments of these two different types of material, paper bags end up being much worse on sort of their upstream, the manufacturing side, so its a bit concerning to also see the shift to paper. But when ethylene gas escapes the facility and is exposed to sunlight, it turns to smog, which has been associated with increased rates of asthma, lung and respiratory infections, and cardiovascular problems. ETHAN: Welcome to episode 106 of The Sweaty Penguin: Antarcticas Hottest Podcast. All rights reserved. But when ethylene gas escapes the facility and is exposed to sunlight, it turns to smog, which has been associated with increased rates of asthma, lung and respiratory infections, and cardiovascular problems. Oil and natural gas are also made of carbon and hydrogen, so in addition to using them for energy, we process them into plastic. As great as it is to see policy efforts get going, we want to hold them accountable and make sure they actually make the biggest positive impact possible. Have a listen. California became the first to introduce regulations banning single-use plastic bags in August 2014. Some are funded by plastic industry groups, like the ironically named American Progressive Bag Alliance. Once ethylene is turned into plastic, its not harmful, youre not going to get a disease just by touching a plastic bag, unless its March 2020 when every cashier in America was convinced thats how Covid spreads. Not So Fast" by Ben Adler and the essay "Choking The Oceans With Plastic" by Charles J. Moore they both pose a connection and an area of disagreement. The Massachusetts proposal may not become law this year, but it's the latest sign that the plastic bag industry is losing this war. Capacitors. The larger takeaway is that no bag is free of environmental impact, whether thats contributing to climate change, ocean pollution, water scarcity, or pesticide use. Not So Fast." Theyre just not very effective. And so I think, and subsidies can be quite expensive for governments to run or source to run. I guess the name does make sense. Very broadly, carbon footprints are proportional to mass of an object, says Tyler. Fees have a smaller, but still significant, effect. Shortly after, the Massachusetts State Senate passed a measure that would ban plastic bags from being dispensed by many retail businesses and require acharge of 10 cents or more for a recycled paper or reusable bag. Different studies say different things, but the point is clear: even though paper bags are much better for the environment in the disposal stage, the rest of the supply chain is riddled with problems. A lovely tote made from single use plastic bags. And you even have some states, at least 17 in the US who have actually banned bag bans, banned regulating bags in general. You can try, but nine times out of ten, its going to rip your original in half. And cotton, unlike paper, is not currently recycled in most places. In May 2016, the New York City Council passed a 5-cent-per-bag fee on single-use bags handed out by most retailers. Solar and wind companies are coming to rural Texas. And what I found was the policies were very successful in reducing the amount of plastic carry out bags people used at supermarkets, it goes to zero as you would expect with a ban. When we got rid of the carry out bags, people had to start purchasing garbage bags. "Banning Plastic Bags Is Great For The World, Right? The one perk with bans is that its by far the easiest policy to explain and enforce. Its been more than five years since single-use plastic bags like these were banned from grocery stores, a ban advocates say made strides for the environment. Why Banning Plastic Grocery Bags Could Be A Bad Move : NPR If youre singularly focused on eliminating plastic bags, theres a level of convenience from a policymaker standpoint thats tempting. Its the same you know, it gets rolled into the price of your groceries the same way that youre paying for the cashiers, and the store workers and the age back and all of that you are paying for your plastic bags, but you dont see that what we call marginal cost per plastic bag. And so this is a really tense issue around. One of the biggest battery recycling plants in theUSis up and running. Wow, that was a tough one. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. [booo] Oil and natural gas are also made of carbon and hydrogen, so in addition to using them for energy, we process them into plastic. ETHAN: Plastic bag bans also can negatively affect businesses. Thats the intended goal of the policy. It may not be big enough. ETHAN: Obviously, bags are the only policy option like we talked about theres fees theres more voluntary approaches You know, with straws, something that intrigued me was default choice modification. How Are Muskoxen Faring in a Changing Climate? Its taken long enough. Studies of bags environmental impacts over their life cycle have reached widely varying conclusions. So thats exactly what I did. Last month, the New York City Council passed a 5-cent-per-bag fee on single-use bags handed out by most retailers. Theres no easy answer, says Eric Goldstein, New York City environment director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which backed NYCs bag fee. I mean, I know it loves to hang at the cracker plants and all but wouldnt it have more fun hanging out with other creatures of the night? The good and the bad of plastic bag bans: Research review Are Plastic Bag Bans a Solution? Paper does have its own environmental consequences in terms of how much energy it takes to generate, acknowledges Emily Norton, director of the Massachusetts Sierra Club. If your chief concern is climate change, things get even muddier.
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