Is a ban on plastics on effective way to slow climate change?
The History of Plastic Bags
Normal paper bags were used frequently up until about the 1960s when a Swedish inventor by the name of Sten Gustaf Thulin developed the first modern design for plastic bags for a packaging company in Sweden. After it was shown off the idea and invention was patented and spread worldwide. Thuringia had a belief that plastic bags would be used long term and almost entirely replace paper bags, which they ended up doing. All the way into 2020 plastic is still the most used material for grocery store bags. However plastic bags don’t just have a trail of gold behind them, because plastic itself contributes to a horrible amount of pollution and animal deaths yearly, as well as producing massive amounts of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Many don’t understand the effects their use of plastic bags have on the environment, but hopefully this helps you understand the consequences the use of plastic, and plastic bags have on the environment every day.
Ban on Plastic:
Within recent years there has been a lot of talk on how there's “too much plastic” and how it is affecting ocean life. With this there has been a big conversation on what the solution for this issue could be. Currently there are eight states that have a total plastic bag ban within every store, the two biggest states that are contributing to this are California and New York. There are other states that have cities within it that have bans on bags but these are the states with a full ban. With the full ban comes big responsibility, the “Straight Forward Ban” method consists of an increase in paper bag usage and thick plastic bags that are reusable and not to throw away, this method also adds a tax on plastic bags and you have to pay for the reusable bags. Knowing that we now have to pay more if we want to use plastic, this discouraged more Americans from using plastic bags. Along with the reusable bags also come the paper which isn't the most eco friendly as well. Currently the solution that seems to be best is the “aldi solution”. With the Aldi solution you don't have the option to use a plastic bag. When you go into Aldi you either have to buy a plastic reusable bag or carry your groceries yourself with no bag unless you bring your own. This is the best solution because there are no free plastic bags at all that can go into the environment.
Behaviors
With the increase in states that have implemented the ban on the use of plastic bags, a decrease in bags has been seen in their cities. According to a VOX article, Tatiana Homonoff comments that the city of Montgomery, as well as implementing the ban on the use of plastic, a 5-cent tax was implemented for the purchase of biodegradable plastic bags. We reached out for an interview with Ms. Homonoff to further talk about behavior changes if the ban was instituted, but we didn’t hear back from her. ALDI is known for its participation in zero use of plastic bags. One can find thin plastic bags to pack produce products but not to pack purchased food. To pack the food purchased, ALDI sells biodegradable bags for only $ 1.99. Plastic and paper bags are also sold for only .88 cents. This is one of the companies that has determined that it would not use plastic bags like other supermarkets and institute a cost to use bags whether or not they’re biodegradable. Alderman Cavalier Johnson also gave his perspective according to the ban on the use of plastic in an article published by WISN news. Given the fact that citizens do not recycle plastic bags after using them, he proposed the institution of the ban which would be directed more towards shops and restaurants.The city of Montgomery, Alabama instituted the law prohibiting the use of plastic and the 5 cent tax for the usage of plastic bag. Drastic changes were noted in the amount of plastic bags flying around the street. After a phone interview with the City of Milwaukee Recycling Coordinator, Analise Smith mentions the negative effects that come with plastic such as oil obstruction to make them. At a local scale, the negative effect of plastic is the amount of littering there is and how it’s getting into waterways. She recommends thinking about and reflecting on our habits, and starting to make changes in our lives. Likewise people should consider the waste hierarchy. If we cannot recycle it, reuse it, reduce the consumption of the product, compost it, etc. But finding a way to reduce the amount of products that fly through our environment. She emphasized that there has to be habitable changes and it starts with us making lifestyle changes.
Plastic vs Cars
It’s been proven over the years that both the production and destruction of plastic, and the use of automobiles on a daily basis have serious effects on the environment, but only recently has it been made more clear than the rampant climate change we’ve found ourselves intertwined in. Both are massive contributors to the excess amounts of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, with cars producing on average 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per vehicle per year, and plastic pumping out 100 million tons of CO2 a year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The average amount of cars on the road in the United States is around 276 million, if each car produces 4.6 tons of CO2 per year, that is equivalent to 1,270,060,000 tons of CO2 a year produced by cars alone. Adding on the extra hundred million tons Plastic emits a year that’s almost 1.4 billion tons of CO2 already, around a fifth of the total CO2 emissions a year. On average we burn about 5.6 million tons of plastic a year, almost 16% of the plastic we produce annually. In 2015, total CO2 emissions from plastics measured up to a scarily high 1.8 billion metric tons, a fifth of our CO2 emissions alone. Should the much larger 1.8 billion tons be correct, adding that to the total emissions made by cars in a year brings the number of total CO2 emissions from 1.3 billion to 3.1 billion metric tons, over half of our total CO2 emissions a year. Both are common use in everyday life, cars for transport, and plastic for recycling, consumption of water and other fluids, packaging for foods and other material things, among its other uses. Plastic is also ditched constantly after its purpose has been fulfilled, take water bottles for example. Recycling helps with the problem of garbage being left everywhere, but plastic is often shipped away to other places and dumped to sit and pollute water and habitats. Rivers in foreign countries are filled with plastic, animal habitats and ecosystems are obliterated by the plastic left out in the open, the ocean especially. Plastic is not biodegradable, it doesn’t just break down naturally over time. Animals are killed when they eat food or drink water that has plastic in it. The biggest problem when it comes to cars is the overuse of fossil fuels and constant greenhouse gas emissions they produce. Car accidents are terrible, yes, but they’re cleaned up to the best of our abilities. Plastic is everywhere, a natural terrorist to everything that lives on the planet. If so much plastic is left out in the open, is there any reason to continue using it, even when we know damn well what it does to the ecosystems around us?
Normal paper bags were used frequently up until about the 1960s when a Swedish inventor by the name of Sten Gustaf Thulin developed the first modern design for plastic bags for a packaging company in Sweden. After it was shown off the idea and invention was patented and spread worldwide. Thuringia had a belief that plastic bags would be used long term and almost entirely replace paper bags, which they ended up doing. All the way into 2020 plastic is still the most used material for grocery store bags. However plastic bags don’t just have a trail of gold behind them, because plastic itself contributes to a horrible amount of pollution and animal deaths yearly, as well as producing massive amounts of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Many don’t understand the effects their use of plastic bags have on the environment, but hopefully this helps you understand the consequences the use of plastic, and plastic bags have on the environment every day.
Ban on Plastic:
Within recent years there has been a lot of talk on how there's “too much plastic” and how it is affecting ocean life. With this there has been a big conversation on what the solution for this issue could be. Currently there are eight states that have a total plastic bag ban within every store, the two biggest states that are contributing to this are California and New York. There are other states that have cities within it that have bans on bags but these are the states with a full ban. With the full ban comes big responsibility, the “Straight Forward Ban” method consists of an increase in paper bag usage and thick plastic bags that are reusable and not to throw away, this method also adds a tax on plastic bags and you have to pay for the reusable bags. Knowing that we now have to pay more if we want to use plastic, this discouraged more Americans from using plastic bags. Along with the reusable bags also come the paper which isn't the most eco friendly as well. Currently the solution that seems to be best is the “aldi solution”. With the Aldi solution you don't have the option to use a plastic bag. When you go into Aldi you either have to buy a plastic reusable bag or carry your groceries yourself with no bag unless you bring your own. This is the best solution because there are no free plastic bags at all that can go into the environment.
Behaviors
With the increase in states that have implemented the ban on the use of plastic bags, a decrease in bags has been seen in their cities. According to a VOX article, Tatiana Homonoff comments that the city of Montgomery, as well as implementing the ban on the use of plastic, a 5-cent tax was implemented for the purchase of biodegradable plastic bags. We reached out for an interview with Ms. Homonoff to further talk about behavior changes if the ban was instituted, but we didn’t hear back from her. ALDI is known for its participation in zero use of plastic bags. One can find thin plastic bags to pack produce products but not to pack purchased food. To pack the food purchased, ALDI sells biodegradable bags for only $ 1.99. Plastic and paper bags are also sold for only .88 cents. This is one of the companies that has determined that it would not use plastic bags like other supermarkets and institute a cost to use bags whether or not they’re biodegradable. Alderman Cavalier Johnson also gave his perspective according to the ban on the use of plastic in an article published by WISN news. Given the fact that citizens do not recycle plastic bags after using them, he proposed the institution of the ban which would be directed more towards shops and restaurants.The city of Montgomery, Alabama instituted the law prohibiting the use of plastic and the 5 cent tax for the usage of plastic bag. Drastic changes were noted in the amount of plastic bags flying around the street. After a phone interview with the City of Milwaukee Recycling Coordinator, Analise Smith mentions the negative effects that come with plastic such as oil obstruction to make them. At a local scale, the negative effect of plastic is the amount of littering there is and how it’s getting into waterways. She recommends thinking about and reflecting on our habits, and starting to make changes in our lives. Likewise people should consider the waste hierarchy. If we cannot recycle it, reuse it, reduce the consumption of the product, compost it, etc. But finding a way to reduce the amount of products that fly through our environment. She emphasized that there has to be habitable changes and it starts with us making lifestyle changes.
Plastic vs Cars
It’s been proven over the years that both the production and destruction of plastic, and the use of automobiles on a daily basis have serious effects on the environment, but only recently has it been made more clear than the rampant climate change we’ve found ourselves intertwined in. Both are massive contributors to the excess amounts of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, with cars producing on average 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per vehicle per year, and plastic pumping out 100 million tons of CO2 a year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The average amount of cars on the road in the United States is around 276 million, if each car produces 4.6 tons of CO2 per year, that is equivalent to 1,270,060,000 tons of CO2 a year produced by cars alone. Adding on the extra hundred million tons Plastic emits a year that’s almost 1.4 billion tons of CO2 already, around a fifth of the total CO2 emissions a year. On average we burn about 5.6 million tons of plastic a year, almost 16% of the plastic we produce annually. In 2015, total CO2 emissions from plastics measured up to a scarily high 1.8 billion metric tons, a fifth of our CO2 emissions alone. Should the much larger 1.8 billion tons be correct, adding that to the total emissions made by cars in a year brings the number of total CO2 emissions from 1.3 billion to 3.1 billion metric tons, over half of our total CO2 emissions a year. Both are common use in everyday life, cars for transport, and plastic for recycling, consumption of water and other fluids, packaging for foods and other material things, among its other uses. Plastic is also ditched constantly after its purpose has been fulfilled, take water bottles for example. Recycling helps with the problem of garbage being left everywhere, but plastic is often shipped away to other places and dumped to sit and pollute water and habitats. Rivers in foreign countries are filled with plastic, animal habitats and ecosystems are obliterated by the plastic left out in the open, the ocean especially. Plastic is not biodegradable, it doesn’t just break down naturally over time. Animals are killed when they eat food or drink water that has plastic in it. The biggest problem when it comes to cars is the overuse of fossil fuels and constant greenhouse gas emissions they produce. Car accidents are terrible, yes, but they’re cleaned up to the best of our abilities. Plastic is everywhere, a natural terrorist to everything that lives on the planet. If so much plastic is left out in the open, is there any reason to continue using it, even when we know damn well what it does to the ecosystems around us?
So, Is a Plastic Ban An Effective Method to Reduce Plastic Usage?
Although many states and cities have not yet implemented a plastic ban, the states that have already instituted this ban have demonstrated drastic changes in their usage of plastic since. These bans not only cause behavioral changes as many come with a tax implementation but they have positive environmental effects such as the reduction of carbon emitted from the production of plastic into the Earth’s atmosphere. If people cannot change their habits by reducing their consumption of plastic products, the ban is the most effective way to reduce how much plastic enters our waterway or flies through our streets.
Work Cited
Zeitlin, Matthew. “Do Plastic Bag Taxes or Bans Curb Waste? 400 Cities and States Tried It Out.” Vox, 20 Aug. 2019, https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/8/20/20806651/plastic-bag-ban-straw-ban-tax.
State Plastic and Paper Bag Legislation. https://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/plastic-bag-legislation.aspx. Accessed 6 Mar. 2020.
So, Is a Plastic Ban An Effective Method to Reduce Plastic Usage?
Although many states and cities have not yet implemented a plastic ban, the states that have already instituted this ban have demonstrated drastic changes in their usage of plastic since. These bans not only cause behavioral changes as many come with a tax implementation but they have positive environmental effects such as the reduction of carbon emitted from the production of plastic into the Earth’s atmosphere. If people cannot change their habits by reducing their consumption of plastic products, the ban is the most effective way to reduce how much plastic enters our waterway or flies through our streets.
Work Cited
Zeitlin, Matthew. “Do Plastic Bag Taxes or Bans Curb Waste? 400 Cities and States Tried It Out.” Vox, 20 Aug. 2019, https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/8/20/20806651/plastic-bag-ban-straw-ban-tax.
State Plastic and Paper Bag Legislation. https://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/plastic-bag-legislation.aspx. Accessed 6 Mar. 2020.