California adopted its first plastic bag ban a decade ago, creating rules that lawmakers said would be a model for reducing plastic pollution nationwide. Instead, because of loopholes in the law, plastic pollution rose by 47 percent – from 157,385 tons in 2014 to 231,072 tons in 2021.
A new law that passed this year closes those loopholes, promising to help California shake its plastic habit. San Diego Sen. Catherine Blakespear’s law, SB 1053, prohibits the use of most disposable plastic bags at retail stores.
But the original bag ban, enacted in 2014, could be considered a case study in unintended consequences.
When it passed, environmental groups hailed it as a trailblazing step toward plastic waste reduction.
“Removing the harmful blight of single-use plastic bags, especially along our coastline and waterways, helps ensure the kind of clean and healthy environment we need to have a stronger economy and a brighter future,” state Sen. Toni Atkins said at the time.
If the country’s most populous state could cut plastic trash, they hoped other states would follow suit.
“We’re the first to ban these bags, and we won’t be the last,” said then-Governor Jerry Brown.
His comment was more prescient than he could have realized. In fact, it wasn’t the last time California would outlaw plastic bags.
What Went Wrong?
The goal of the first ban was to get Californians to switch to reusable bags instead. It sort of worked. Shoppers began bringing decorative nylon sacks and insulated totes on grocery runs instead of the throwaway plastic bags that grocers used to distribute.
However, in a concession to plastic bag manufacturers, California lawmakers allowed retailers to swap out the thin, flimsy bags for thicker, sturdier ones that – in theory – could be used dozens of times and then recycled.
In practice, however, almost no one used them more than once or twice. Some people used them a second time for trash or pet waste, then dropped them in the garbage. Others were discarded and then blew away, winding up on beaches or in the ocean. And while they were supposed to be recyclable, facilities in California didn’t accept them.
The ban wasn’t immediately a failure. At first, most shoppers made the switch to sturdy woven totes and passed up the chunky, new disposable bags. Plastic bag waste dropped slightly from 157,395 tons in 2014 to 139,810 in 2018. It seemed like the ban was working.
The pandemic changed all that. Concerns for the environment gave way to worries about spreading the Covid-19 virus through reusable bags. Plastic bag waste spiked at 231,072 tons in 2021, the consumer advocacy group CALPIRG found.
Why Plastic Waste Is Bad for Us
The rising tide of plastic bags coincides with a growing body of research showing why they’re a problem.
Plastic waste never really goes away. It takes 20 to 500 years to decompose, the United Nations reports. And then it just breaks down into smaller, more insidious particles known as microplastics.
These tiny bits of toxic waste can be found just about everywhere. In the ocean, plastic debris can be lethal to wildlife.
“Microplastics have been found in the stomachs of many different types of wildlife, from the smallest species of plankton to large whales,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Microplastics also have been found in the air, tap water, sea salt, bottled water, beer, and the fish that humans eat.”
There’s more; microplastics can break down into nanoplastics: particles 1,000 times smaller and possibly more chemically reactive. Researchers have found tiny plastic particles in human organs and fluids including brains, arteries, placentas and breast milk.
Plastic manufacturers point out that their products are lightweight, durable and insulating, making them useful in everything from cars and aircraft to heating and cooling. In other words, plastic is probably here to stay. But single-use plastics may be on their way out.
What Happens Next?
Blakespear’s law takes effect in 2026, to give grocers time to use up their existing inventory of plastic bags.
It bans single-use plastic bags, except for those used for unwrapped food, such as produce bags. It lets stores distribute paper bags, but they have to be made from at least half recycled paper by 2028. And it allows retailers to sell reusable bags that meet certain criteria and don’t contain any toxic material.
The new law applies to grocers, but other retailers such as pharmacies, home improvement stores or clothing shops aren’t affected.
And there are still many types of plastic waste, such as straws, water bottles, takeout containers and other kinds of plastic packaging. California lawmakers introduced a host of bills last year that aimed to regulate those items. They failed, along with measures to establish a working group on single-use plastics at CalEPA.
But you can expect new stabs at regulation next year. State Sen. Steve Padilla already introduced a bill for the next legislative session that would require plastic water bottles to have tethered caps.
California generates more than 14 billion water bottles and caps each year, and the caps are often separated and become litter, creating a hazard to marine animals, Padilla stated.
“We have to end our addiction to plastic for the sake of healthier oceans for generations of Californians to come,” he said.
Those thicker plastic bags last through literally hundreds of uses. (I’ve been reusing them for groceries for years.)
I’m OK with eliminating checkstand plastic bags. We can all use reusable bags (like they do in most of Europe). It just takes time to get into the habit of bringing them with you.
Homeless drug addicts burn down forests and leave tons of plastics and garbage all over our city and state. The government does nothing. But they want to charge you $1 to use a plastic bag.
We don’t need more laws, I continue to believe the answer lies in recycling, we must find ways to effectively recycle all plastics. Plastic is used everywhere in everything and it’s unrealistic to think it can be banned. We recycle in Carlsbad with three different colored bins but plastic bags can’t go in the blue bin, go figure . . . let’s power technology to solve this issue.