In the trunk of my parent’s car, they have a supply of stashed reusable grocery bags. They’ve always kept them since California installed its plastic bag ban—a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags at any convenience, drug, or grocery store. Made almost ten years ago, the idea of this ban was to reduce the world’s plastic waste issue. However, I believe the ban has not improved our current situation and in some ways, made it worse.
According to CalRecycle, California’s recycling program, Californians threw away on average, eleven pounds of plastic in 2021. In 2004, they only threw away an average of eight pounds. These statistics came seven years after the plastic bag ban. Plastic can take up to a thousand years to degrade. From this fact alone, it’s not hard to deduce that the ban has been severely ineffective and has somehow increased the amount of plastic waste.
What is California planning to do next? Our lawmakers and legislators proposed a new bill banning all types of plastic bags, including heavy-duty reusable ones. If effective, this newer bag ban hopes to decrease plastic waste again. Looking at past trends and history, I can say this bill will likely not work.
After California banned plastic bag use, plastic waste rose 47%. This trend is not in California alone. According to a recent study, New Jersey’s plastic bag consumption rate increased by three times after enacting a similar rule. Implementing another ban may make our problem even more complicated. If single-use plastic waste can rise by almost 50% in less than a decade, how will another law of the same nature prevent it from rising another 50% by 2030?
We live in an era where technological advancements and discoveries happen every day. By continuing to make the same mistakes, there may come a day when our plastic issues become irreversible. Instead of imposing essentially the same ban, California officials should research more effective, eco-friendly solutions. While I continue to rely on my parent’s stash of grocery bags, I stay hopeful that California can find a real solution to this issue before it’s too late.
