California's plastic bag ban is failing. Here's why

[usonian]

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-08-24/whats-the-deal-with-single-use-plastic-bag-bans
L.A. Times (I did not run into a paywall) Archived if you do: https://archive.is/IHgtT
BY JESSICA ROYASSISTANT EDITOR, UTILITY JOURNALISM
AUG. 24, 2023 3 AM PT. (get some sleep, Jessica!)
Long. Here is some of the article.

Most likely, you use a single-use plastic bag for as long as it takes to get your groceries home. A few minutes. Maybe a few days, if it gets to be a garbage bag. It will spend the rest of its life in a landfill — assuming the landfill can contain it — fragmenting into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic over hundreds of years. Though plastic bags represent a fraction of plastics produced, they are a unique source of blight, according to Mark Murray, the executive director of environmental group Californians Against Waste. They blow into tree branches, clog sewer drains, wrinkle jellyfish-like in our oceans and tumble across our roads. Because they’re so light, they defy proper waste management, floating off trash cans and sanitation trucks like they’re being raptured by a garbage god.

The law took a big hit in 2020. The plastics industry seized the moment when COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns went into effect. Reusable bags of any kind brought from home were “virus-laden”; they were “petri dishes for bacteria and carriers of harmful pathogens,” industry groups were quoted as saying by the New York Times. Bringing them into stores “puts consumers and workers at risk,” the Plastics Industry Assn. wrote in a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (translation: another lie)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom suspended the state’s ban on grocery stores providing single-use plastic bags for 60 days amid COVID-19 concerns: The Times reported there were concerns “that clerks may be at risk for exposure to the coronavirus if shoppers are required to supply their own reusable bags to carry their purchases home.” It is now known that COVID spreads primarily via air. COVID transmission was never linked to reusable bags.

Eventually, the bag charges came back. But reusable bags — the ones you did bring from home — didn’t. Today, most shoppers who get bags for their groceries get all-new HDPE bags every time. (Oh, and have you noticed that most of these “don’t forget your reusable bags” signs have disappeared from grocery stores?)

skip to the end: The author recommends:

Realistically, the most efficient way to dispose of them is to use them as garbage can liners, pet poop bags, wet swimsuit holders, travel laundry hampers, and other household uses until they can’t be used any more. Then put them in your trash. Next time you go to the store, try not to forget to bring your reusables.

[Mr.Bill]

1. I go to a grocery store that is unique

in that the have never used plastic bags. Always used paper only. By law, they have to charge me ten cents for each bag. But here is something else they do. If I bring my own bag, they pay me five cents for each one. It's not big money, but the third time I use the bag, I'm breaking even.

Also, when most stores would not let you bring your own bag because they were worried about spreading the virus, they let you bring your own but you had to do the bagging yourself, which I usually do anyway.

They also enforced mask rules better than most stores. If you refused to wear a mask, they offered to go get your groceries for you and bring them to the door where you could pay.

[MichMan]

2. Most every store I frequent accepts them in recycle bins as you walk in

I just collect them at home and bring them in every month or so and recycle them

[progressoid]

6. What really happens to plastic bags returned to store for recycling?

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[MichMan]

13. So, I might as well just throw them in the trash and stop recycling them?

Even though the linked video stated some of them get recycled.? I have to say it would be a lot easier that way.

[progressoid]

16. No.

Sorry I did a post and run. It was late and I was tired.

I also take them to those boxes when I get too many. It's frustrating when we're trying to do the right thing only to find out so much of it is a sham.

[TexasTowelie]

3. I reuse my bags for nearly all of my grocery excursions.

One cloth bag is for the six-pack of beer at the liquor store. I also have a thermally insulated bag and a large durable-fabric bag both with strong handles in case I need to hang them from the back of my wheelchair. I've found this more efficient than carrying 7 or 8 plastic bags that were subject to breaking. I will still ask the grocery clerk to put items in plastic containers that might break such as pico de gallo, guacamole, parfaits into plastic bags before putting them in my other bags so that I can avoid cleanup if an accident occurs.

Now if I could find someone at the grocery store that actually knows how to sack groceries--frozen and cold items in the insulated bag, isolating the breakable products from other groceries, keeping chemical products away from food products, and grouping like products (bathroom/office products/pantry/refrigerator/produce). I'm dreaming...

[BlueIn_W_Pa]

4. Lol, there's so many things to love about your post

[TexasTowelie]

7. I've had to make a lot of adaptations since I went into a wheelchair.

Lugging around groceries while riding on a bus is one of them. I also had to use a fanny pack to carry around the phone, wallet, keys, face mask, sunglasses and change because all of my belongings would drop out of my wheelchair as we stand up to grab items from the top shelves.

[Deuxcents]

5. I usually go to the self check out mainly because

As you say, they don’t know how to bag groceries. I got tired of squished bread, bananas on the bottom all bruised and eggs or chicken not separated even tho I use a produce bag to put them in my cart. I hate that I’m not using a paid employee and don’t want to contribute to the loss of jobs but how hard is it to bag groceries?!

[TexasTowelie]

9. I usually leave most of those items for my brother to pick up.

Items that are out are large volumes of liquid like laundry detergent, more than a 15 pack of beverages or bottled water. Cat litter and ice are also off of the list, I'll occasionally get a half-gallon of milk or a pint of ice cream if I remember to carry along the frozen ice packs to the store, which I put into a plastic bag and then in the insulated bag.

My grocery sackers also understand that the heavy items belong at the bottom of the bag to provide a strong base for the items that sit on top. They obviously would suck at Jenga.

[usonian]

11. Yikes. All the baggers I have encountered do a great job.

Too good, because I often unpack the bags to put stuff in a big old cooler for the long-ish drive home.

[Mopar151]

8. I'm on the VT NH border

Plenty of reusables seen at Market Basket in Claremont. They do a brisk business with thrifty Vermonters who stock up at NH prices! As a rookie bagger told me: "I learned something today! When people pay a lot of money for their groceries, they're very f'n particular about how they're packed!"

[Retrograde]

10. Not around here

you can get new bags every time, but there's a charge. Most people bring reusable ones.

[C Moon]

12. I think it worked in one way: I don't see hundreds of black or white plastic bags in the streets.

There are a LOT less. Plastic bags used to be floating around, sitting in gutters, smashed against walls.

[hlthe2b]

14. Reusables seem to be working fine in most of Colorado--especially the Front Range from

what I can tell. Grocery stores do NOT give the option of a disposable bag. If you didn't bring your own, you can purchase paper (5 or 10 cents)or a reusable bag for several dollars.

You always have the option of stuffing purchases unbagged in the cart and taking them back to your car where you may have a box or bag.

Not sure why California would allow retailers to sell disposable plastic bags. Even with COVID, paper was an option.

[usonian]

17. We get heavy duty-usable plastic bags or paper.

No low density bags are offered in grocery stores.

[twodogsbarking]

15. Plastic bags get in sewer lines and block them. A real problem.

https://dpw.lacounty.gov/epd/plasticbags/articles/googobits_07-21-05.pdf