Published October 8, 2014 in the Wall Street Journal
Plastic bags are one of the most common
items in everyday life. And they are at the heart of a fight raging in
municipalities world-wide.
Many cities
around the globe have already banned the ubiquitous bags from stores,
and activists are pushing for bans elsewhere. They argue that cities
must spend vast sums to clean up the bags and the damages caused by
them, money that's better spent elsewhere. Not to mention that plastic
bags are a blight on the environment, polluting waterways and other
natural areas and killing off animals. Banning plastic bags, the
activists say, will redirect funds to infrastructure and spur
entrepreneurial efforts to come up with alternatives to plastic.
Former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley tells WSJ's Joe White
how mayors can promote green cities and William McDonough, Chairman
ofMcDonough Advisors talks about the green buildings that could be
contructed to fill them.
But skeptics say that science doesn't
support the idea that plastic bags do any genuine harm. They also
dispute the idea that there are more practical alternatives to the bags
out there. All told, they say, plastic bags end up doing less damage
than the substitutes people often turn to—and the benefits that the bags
offer far outweigh their cost.
Daniella
Dimitrova Russo, co-founder and executive director of the Plastic
Pollution Coalition, presents the case for bans. Todd Myers,
environmental director at the Washington Policy Center, makes the
opposition argument.
Yes: They're Deadly and Costly
By Daniella Dimitrova Russo
Plastic
pollution is the nexus of some of the major environmental challenges
facing us today. Discarded plastic bags float in the ocean, they tumble
in the desert, they are found in riverbeds and dams. They kill off
marine animals that confuse the bags with plankton and jellyfish; they
end up calcified in the stomachs of animals on land.
But the greatest damage is
economic—the cost of cleaning up all that waste. That's why dozens of
countries and cities around the world, including 47 municipalities in
California alone, have adopted ordinances banning plastic bags.
Significant Costs
Communities
don't have much of a choice if they leave things as they are: They
either drown in plastic bags or spend millions of dollars to clean up
the mess—tax dollars that should go toward infrastructure, education and
libraries.
San Jose, Calif., reports
that it costs about $1 million a year to repair recycling equipment
jammed with plastic bags San Francisco estimates that to clean up,
recycle and landfill plastic bags costs as much as 17 cents a bag, or
approximately $8.5 million a year.
Elsewhere
in the world, Bangladesh banned plastic bags because they clog
storm-drain systems and cause major flooding, which in turn has
significant economic cost. Ireland's PlasTax was prompted by the cost of
litter. The United Arab Emirates plans to eliminate the use of
conventional plastic bags by 2013.
There's
also a cost on the consumer end. Grocery stores embed 2 cents to 5
cents per plastic bag in the cost of food. A ban would save
approximately $18 to $30 per person annually.
Why
not explore options besides a ban? In many cases, those options don't
work. Efforts to increase bag recycling with take-back programs, for
instance, have shown minimal success to date. Since 2007, the state of
California has been working on an in-store program to recycle bags, and
there is no conclusive evidence that it has been successful.
Market-based solutions—such as asking
people to pay for plastic bags at checkout—have been effective in
Washington, D.C., and Ireland. But those strategies have sometimes been
blocked by the legislative efforts of ban opponents. Until recently, for
example, a California law prohibited the state from charging a fee for
plastic bags.
Of course, ban opponents
dispute the impact that plastic bags have on the environment. One line
of argument is to diminish the effect that the bags have on marine life.
They
argue that other types of waste, such as discarded fishing gear, also
kill fish, so why focus on plastic bags? Other waste does certainly harm
fish and should be addressed. But plastic bags kill just as many, and
their broader impact on the environment and the economy makes them a
much more urgent concern.
What's more,
when talking about pollution, critics often don't take into account the
whole environmental impact of bags, including the energy used to
manufacture and dispose of them. And they often rely on heavily flawed
estimates of how many bags end up as pollution.
For
instance, many studies overlook a simple but crucial fact: Bags break
down into smaller pieces. They're not technically "bags"—and aren't
counted as such—but are still pollutants. In other cases, studies
understate the impact of plastic bags because they don't account for the
weight or volume of the bags; they simply tally up how many bags are
out there and compare the total to other types of garbage.
As
for the idea that people reuse bags instead of bringing them to
take-back days, statistics show most bags are simply discarded. Over the
past 25 years, plastic bags have been one of the top items collected on
International Coastal Cleanup Day. That also calls into question
another argument critics make—that plastic bags make up a tiny fraction
of pollution on beaches.
A Necessary Step
Bans
are often considered a massive government invasion into private
business. But with plastic bags, we are dealing with a product that has
an inherent design flaw. The bags are lightweight, aerodynamic,
practically indestructible and made specifically to be discarded. An
invasion into private business is often warranted when a product is
causing significant economic and environmental damage on a massive
scale—and must be replaced with something safe.
There
is no denying that the ubiquitous plastic bag serves many purposes, but
it is not irreplaceable. With a ban on disposable plastic bags,
consumer demand will shift toward alternatives, and new opportunities
will begin to emerge for entrepreneurs.
Companies
that manufacture reusable bags will continue to grow and diversify
their product lines, and will create more green jobs. The sale of
reusable bags will also generate sales-tax revenue—unlike the disposable
bags, which are given away.
Citizens of
China, Mexico, India and countries throughout Africa and Europe shop
without single-use bags. It is time we join them and spend our tax
dollars on schools, roads and firefighters—not cleaning up the plastic
industry's mess.
Ms. Russo is co-founder and executive director of the Plastic Pollution Coalition. She can be reached at reports@wsj.com.
No: The Harm Is Overblown
By Todd Myers
Across
the world, cities are joining the latest environmental fad—banning
plastic grocery bags. Activists think banning the bags is a simple and
environmentally responsible approach.
But there's no evidence that banning
bags helps the environment—and plenty of evidence that it may actually
hurt. Bans yield little benefit to wildlife while increasing carbon
emissions and other unhealthy environmental effects.
Little Harm to Wildlife
Let's
go through the arguments for banning bags. Ban backers cite impacts on
marine life, but they consistently sidestep the actual data. The
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for one, says there are
currently no published studies about how many marine mammals die
because of marine debris.
Meanwhile, other sources of marine debris,
such as discarded fishing gear, are recognized as a danger to sea life.
Why the frenzy over one source—plastic bags—in the absence of evidence?
As
for the pollution caused by plastic bags, consider a study by Ospar,
the European organization working to protect the marine environment. The
study found plastic shopping bags represented less than 3% of marine
litter on European beaches, a figure that includes scraps of plastic
from shredded bags.
Meanwhile, the claim
that municipalities spend a substantial amount of their trash budget,
let alone millions of dollars, on picking up plastic bags is hard to
believe. In many cases, these claims are guesses by advocates instead of
data based on actual studies, and cost is often thrown in as a
justification after bans are enacted for political reasons.
For
some perspective, consider: Cities like San Francisco and Toronto have
found that less than 1% of their litter consists of plastic bags. As a
further point of reference, in Washington state, an average-size state,
the state budget for all litter cleanup is about $7 million.
Some ban supporters claim plastics
harm human health, even when studies from organizations like the
Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, and Pacific Northwest National Labs show these claims are
false or exaggerated.
Consider a study
from the U.K. Environment Agency that found plastic grocery bags have
the lowest environmental impact in "human toxicity" and "marine aquatic
toxicity" as well as "global-warming potential" even after paper bags
are used four times and reusable cotton bags are used 173 times. Why?
Largely because paper and cotton bags come from crops that require
fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and the like.
Environmental Effects
Critics
also say that ban opponents ignore the environmental impact of bags
over the course of their lifetime. But many studies do just that. The
U.K. Environment Agency's study, for instance, compared the energy
expended in creating, using and disposing of plastic, paper and reusable
bags to arrive at its figures.
Consumers would have to use a cotton bag
173 times before they match the energy savings of one plastic bag,
assuming 40% of bags are reused—a percentage that's actually lower than the rate in some cities.
Some
critics say we need to ban bags because voluntary take-back programs
don't work. But the point of the programs is simply to reuse bags, and
consumers already reuse bags to hold garbage or pick up after pets.
As
for the idea that plastic bags cost consumers more, the reason grocery
stores use plastic instead of paper or other bags is that they cost less
and hold more. Reusable bags are even more expensive.
Let's Be Honest
This
doesn't mean plastic bags have no impact. When determining the
environmental costs and benefits, however, we need to be honest about
the science and the trade-offs. In the end, communities need to seek the
greatest environmental benefit for their time and resources.
When
Seattle considered its first bag ban, politicians touted the benefits,
including reductions in energy and water use. The claims ignored the use
of substituted bags, thus making the projections extremely favorable
toward the ban.
Even with those skewed
numbers, my estimates show a saving of $278,452 worth of carbon
emissions and water for a cost of $10 million to consumers. Somehow
spending $100 to receive $3 in environmental benefit is supposed to be
smart policy.
Weighing the costs and
benefits makes it clear that banning plastic bags yields little benefit
at very high cost.
Unfortunately, the political symbolism of banning the
bags is powerful. It is often easier to ignore the science that
indicates such bans may actually harm the environment than to make an
honest effort to weigh these issues. All of this is why plastic-bag bans
are more about environmental image than environmental benefit.
Mr. Myers is environmental director at the Washington Policy Center. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com.
But
this is L.A., a population of 4 million people. Once the law is set in
stone, it's hard not to wonder, what's next? How will this ban impact
the L.A. community? And will it cause other cities to follow suit?
material and an increase awareness of recycling. Recycling the material could be a comprehensive approach to litter prevention.