First off, I had a lot of cracker jokes, but more importantly being a heat intensive process, the production of plastic bags requires a good amount of energy, and it should come as no surprise that these petrochemical facilities typically use natural gas for their electricity source. However, it cannot be argued that they are the only components that contribute to Earth's many environmental problems. Then Oregon, Connecticut, Maine and Vermont passed laws against them. Plastic bag bans havent fixed the entire problem where theyve been implemented. Climate change, they say, isnt the only form of environmental degradation to worry about. But that tiny switch makes it so people dont feel different or left out if they dont have a straw. But advocates of these laws and journalists who cover the issue often neglect to ask what will replace plastic bags and what the environmental impact of that replacement will be. Banning plastic bags is great for the world, right? | Grist The shift from one single-use bag to another single-use bag may improve one environmental outcome, but be offset by another environmental impact.. 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 . 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. But what if reusable bags arent good either? Last month, the New York City Council passed a 5-cent-per-bag fee on single-use bags handed out by most retailers. Twitter, Follow us on On the disposal side, single-use plastic bags are currently not recyclable, but thats because the bags are so flimsy they can get caught in the machinery. Banning plastic bags may come with unintended consequences - TechCrunch Winters are becoming less and less predictable due to climate change, but you dont have to worry because the second you put on a long sleeve shirt and jeans, youll be hearing Mariah Carey blast on every radio in town. The past and future are tightly linked in conventional quantum mechanics. Because we do see such a strong response of having to pay for your bag, when you have to pay for your bag, it makes it an active decision, instead of just default, getting a whole bunch of bags that you dont really think about, we find that bag taxes are actually as effective as bag bans, and getting people to change their behavior, potentially without some of the unintended consequences of completely eliminating an option making people switch to other bags, which might actually be more harmful for the environment.
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