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Re:Plastic bans work. Billions of plastic bags were avoided ... by Wowfunhappy on Sunday February 04, 2024 @03:05PM (#39253847)
Yes, except that I'm not convinced these laws reduce emissions, and I'm concerned they do the opposite. I realize the study being cited around this thread [1] was commissioned by the plastic industry and is thus suspect, but just based off of watching people in the checkout line at the grocery store, I see far too many shoppers buying "reusable" bags for me to believe they're actually being reused enough times. [2]

The inconveniences I'm describing are personal gripes, but I don't believe they only apply to me! On the contrary, I think they explain all the not-reused reusable bag sales. You can say "these people should just do X Y and Z", but unless they actually do that, plastic bag bans aren't helping the environment.

(If we're exclusively discussing my personal carbon emissions, I used to reuse every single one of my shopping bags as trash bags. Now I buy separate plastic trash bags instead, so my emissions have gone up.)

And then there's the other way they harm the environment: we need more people to give up their cars and move to cities (or form new walkable cities). If you make city life less convenient, fewer people will do that.

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1: https://www.freedoniagroup.com/press-releases/freedonia-repo...

2: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-environmental...

Re:Plastic bans work. Billions of plastic bags were avoided ... by latexr on Sunday February 04, 2024 @03:19PM (#39253972)
> If we're exclusively discussing my personal carbon emissions

No worries, we definitely aren’t.

Unfortunately I have an early flight tomorrow so won’t be able to continue the conversation. Still, thank you for the discussion. Have a nice <your time of day>.