NPR does a nice bit on the idiocy of plastic bag bans. No really:
A bunch of studies find that paper bags are actually worse for the environment. They require cutting down and processing trees, which involves lots of water, toxic chemicals, fuel and heavy machinery. While paper is biodegradable and avoids some of the problems of plastic, Taylor says, the huge increase of paper, together with the uptick in plastic trash bags, means banning plastic shopping bags increases greenhouse gas emissions.
[…]
A 2011 study by the U.K. government found a person would have to reuse a cotton tote bag 131 times before it was better for climate change than using a plastic grocery bag once. The Danish government recently did a study that took into account environmental impacts beyond simply greenhouse gas emissions, including water use, damage to ecosystems and air pollution. These factors make cloth bags even worse. They estimate you would have to use an organic cotton bag 20,000 times more than a plastic grocery bag to make using it better for the environment.
And, as the article points out, studies found that as grocery bags were banned, it drove a huge increase in other, unregulated, sizes of plastic bags:
One reply on “NPR asks: “Are Plastic Bag Bans Garbage?””
Well isn’t that something. Those environmentalists must hate the environment…