The study finds that plastic bags as a fraction of the waste on beaches increased in all areas, so that’s bad.

A more concerning issue is the nature of the bags being thrown away. California banned “single use” plastic bags (which we used to reuse as trash bags for the bathroom or whatever) but lets you buy “reusable” ones for a few cents at the checkout counter. The reusable ones are much heavier and contain 10-100x more plastic, and take even longer to biodegrade.

The study counts “items”, not weight, and reports a 25-47% decrease.

Assuming California is the region that hit 47% (call it 50%), and the reusable bags are better than the best available (only 10x worse than pre-ban) that translates to a 5x increase in microplastics on the beach. I’d consider this a disaster, not a win.

This matches older studies, which measured total plastic content of landfill waste before and after plastic bag bans like California’s.

Those showed sharp increases in plastic waste too. The studies in question were in places that did not allow the reusable plastic ones that California forced the stores to switch to. Instead, the authors found that people switched from using the disposable bags as trash bags to using kitchen trash bags, which are ~100x worse. If only 1% of households were using disposable shopping bags for trash, and no one reused the new style bags, then the policies ended up breaking even. In practice, the policies increased total plastic waste, despite being better thought out than California’s newer ban.

I’m all for banning plastic bags, but the current bans target the most efficient use of plastic, increasing overall plastic production and waste. The bans should only target things that have plastic-free alternatives, or at least that have less plastic intensive alternatives.

As someone who lives on the beach and lived on the beach since before these bans, plastic bags never seemed much of an issue and the real issue is that most people who visit the beach think nothing of leaving their garbage on the beach. Before the ban people tended to leave their garbage nicely contained in a plastic bag, now everyone just leaves it strewn about because they don't want to put garbage in their reusable bags that they use for their groceries which also would mean they would have to deal with the garbage instead of "forgetting" their plastic bag of garbage. The worst is the massive increase in sodden diapers, no one has a disposable bag for the diapers so they just leave them on the beach.

The garbage bags and plastic bag that wash up on the beach are insignificant compared to the garbage beach goers leave on the beach and people who don't live on the beach don't realize how much garbage that is because those of us who do live on the beach spoil our morning stroll and swim with picking up the garbage so the beach can be clean and ready to be spoiled all over again.

The majority of plastic on beaches comes from the sea, not the land. Most of it comes not from people using the beach for recreation but from shipping, fishing, industry and also arrives washed down from rivers and via drainage and sewage. Needless to say of course there is lots added by people using the beach too but its worth looking at the whole picture.

https://www.mcsuk.org/ocean-emergency/ocean-pollution/plasti...

I know these types of comments are frowned upon here, but I find it really sad that posts about video game sales, for example, have many more upvotes than a post about positive efforts to reduce plastic waste. It shows where priorities and interests lie for the majority.

I comment like this because I understand that the struggle is not only to stop this kind of waste--and on a larger scale the environmental destruction of our planet--but also to engage and motivate the public at large to want to make these changes.

counting bags instead of measuring total plastic weight is peak policy theater. yeah fewer bags on beaches looks good in a chart, but if each one's 50x thicker now, congrats you just upgraded the pollution class without fixing the problem. are we're optimizing for optics again. where's the data on mass per capita per disposal cycle?

Purely anecdotally, when plastic bags in my country started costing 5-ish SEK I switched to fabric reusables (which I already had lying around from conventions and stuff) almost immediately. In the uncommon case where I don't have one handy I go for the 3 SEK paper bag. I think I now buy maybe 2-3 plastic bags a year in some rare instance where one of the other options isn't practical.

I wonder if plastic bottles are charged/taxed anywhere? Because I bet they're #2 if not #1 in pollution.

And straws, oh yes. I noticed after covid they're in individual packaging!

Plastic doesn't actually necessarily end up in the ocean. Most plastic in the ocean comes from certain countries, like the Philippines, while other countries contribute basically not at all. The problem here is mainly the law and law enforcement in certain countries which fail to prevent dumping plastic in the sea. But that's not an overly hard thing to prevent, because many countries are doing it successfully.

I am all for complete and absolute ban on plastic bags.

And the biggest contribution to plastic in the oceans is fishing nets. We all ought to do our part and buy less fish.

They investigated plastic bags specifically and found that plastic bag litter specifically went down (according to reading before the Conclusion).

Yeah why? Because you get the choice to take a plastic bag with you or not at the checkout. That’s why. That’s you choice. You have much less (just indirect) choice when it comes to how much plastic the stuff you buy is wrapped in. But wait. That’s a lot of it. Even most apparently cardboard wrapping makes me second guess if there is a microfilm of plastic over it.

So we have to hyperfocus on this type of plastic. The one that is the consumer’s choice. And plastic straws of course.

Even less of a choice is commercial fishing equipment being dumped in the ocean. Or things being dumped from other commercial activities.

They got data from citizen-scientists from plastic cleanup. Were those volunteers?[1] If so, plastic pollution propaganda is so important that the important work of plastic cleanup is given to concerned citizens as a bleeding heart hazing ritual. Is that how serious we are about the issue?

The nearest small sports arena is made of synthetic grass which is pellets of plastic. But that’s fine. Plastic bags.

[1] Or that might just be a stereotype by me

"Let's ban everything that could be remotely harmful" is the way to further rampant authoritarianism, not that we aren't already on that path...

And instead we kill a lot more trees and plants to make expensive cotton or polyester bags that are much worse for the environment as a whole. It’s typical left leaning feel good logic instead of actually improving something. Not to mention the inconvenience