Plastic Bag Bans Backfired in California and New Jersey, Increasing Waste

” the FCR report states that polypropylene bag production has caused a 500 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions, and that it is unlikely the emissions will be offset significantly by bag reuse, since most consumers throw them away far earlier than expected. “

Recent research has revealed that plastic bag bans in California and New Jersey have resulted in an increase in plastic waste, rather than the decrease intended.

A new report from the California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) shows that California’s 2014 plastic bag ban, SB 270, has led to more plastic waste, not less, over the 10-year period since the law was enacted.

Likewise, a report from Freedonia Custom Research (FCR) found that more plastic containers and bags were used in New Jersey after that state’s plastic bag ban. The FCR report also found the increased use of polypropylene bags as a result of the ban contributed to a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

Californians Use More Plastic after Ban

CALPIRG is a consumer advocacy group that supported the initial plastic bag ban and now supports a stricter plastic bag bans in California that removes the “loophole” they claim the existing California law created. The law permits retailers to sell thicker plastic bags for a fee, which CALPIRG said in a January 2024 report led to an increase in plastic waste because customers still treat them as single-use bags.

“While theoretically “reusable,” it appears that many shoppers are disposing of those bags in the same ways as single use bags, potentially undermining the effectiveness of plastic bag bans at reducing plastic waste overall,” CALPIRG reports.

In Alameda County, California, for example, the thicker reusable bags resulted in more plastic waste by weight despite decreasing the number of bags consumed, says the CALPIRG report.

“Since these “reusable” plastic bags are at least four times thicker than typical single-use plastic bags, the estimated 13 million of them sold in Alameda County in 2021 likely surpassed the 37 million single-use plastic bags sold annually pre-ban on a plastic weight basis,” CALPIRG said.

The weight of plastic bags discarded per 1,000 people increased from 4.13 tons in 2004 to 5.89 tons in 2021.

New Jersey Plastic Consumption Spikes

In New Jersey, the results of a 2022 plastic bag ban were similar, according to another, recent report from FCR, a division of MarketResearch.com.

FCR reports that following the thin-film plastic bag ban, the shift to alternatives resulted in a massive increase in plastic consumption.

“[F]ollowing New Jersey’s ban of single-use bags, the shift from plastic film to alternative bags resulted in a nearly 3x increase in plastic consumption for bags,” FCR’s report states. “At the same time, 6x more woven and non-woven polypropylene plastic was consumed to produce the reusable bags sold to consumers as an alternative.”

Despite being advertised as environmentally friendly, the FCR report states that polypropylene bag production has caused a 500 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions, and that it is unlikely the emissions will be offset significantly by bag reuse, since most consumers throw them away far earlier than expected.

“FCR’s analysis of New Jersey bag demand and trade data for alternative bags finds that, on average, an alternative bag is reused only two to three times before being discarded, falling short of the recommended reuse rates necessary to mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions generated during production and [to] address climate change,” said FCR.

‘More Expensive, Worse for the Environment’

There is a reason why thin-film plastic bags are commonly used in the first place, says H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., director of The Heartland Institute’s Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy, and it is not shocking that people began using other types of plastic bags.

“It is not surprising that the plastic bag bans in New Jersey and California backfired, I predicted as much 10 years ago when I was writing on the then relatively new phenomena of plastic bag bans,” Burnett said. “Plastic bags have many virtues, the primary among them being convenience and ease of reuse.”

As in the case with polypropylene bags detailed in the FCR report, attempting to get rid of plastic bags carries costs, Burnett says, and if cities and states were so concerned about the impact of volumes of plastic waste, they should have looked into other solutions.

“Alternatives to plastic bags are more expensive, worse for the environment, and sometimes bad for public health,” Burnett said. “Recycling plastic bags should have been the response to cities concerned about plastic waste, not banning them.”

Not only are the thicker and reusable bags more costly, but the bans drive stores toward returning to paper bags, Burnett says, and support countries like China which stand to gain economically from spikes in reusable bag manufacturing.

“The cities cost themselves, their residents, and the United States economy money, destroying trees and boosting China, which dominates the reusable bag market, in the process,” Burnett said.

Linnea Lueken ([email protected]) is a research fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute.

For more on plastic bag bans, click here and here.

Linnea Lueken https://www.heartland.org/about-us/who-we-are/linnea-lueken

Linnea Lueken is a Research Fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy. While she was an intern with The Heartland Institute in 2018, she co-authored a policy brief ‘Debunking Four Persistent Myths About Hydraulic Fracturing’.

Related Topics:#HeartlandDailyNews #LinneaLueken #PlasticBagBans #PlasticGroceryBags

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New Analysis Shows Just How Bad Electric Trucks Are For Business

Published on May 12, 2024

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By WILL KESSLER

Converting America’s medium- and heavy-duty trucks to electric vehicles (EV) in accordance with goals from the Biden administration would add massive costs to commercial trucking, according to a new analysis released Wednesday.

The cost to switch over to light-duty EVs like a transit van would equate to a 5% increase in costs per year while switching over medium- and heavy-duty trucks would add up to 114% in costs per year to already struggling businesses, according to a report from transportation and logistics company Ryder Systems. The Biden administration, in an effort to facilitate a transition to EVs, finalized new emission standards in March that would require a huge number of heavy-duty vehicles to be electric or zero-emission by 2032 and has created a plan to roll out charging infrastructure across the country.

“There are specific applications where EV adoption makes sense today, but the use cases are still limited,” Karen Jones, executive vice president at Ryder, said in an accompanying press release. “Yet we’re facing regulations aimed at accelerating broader EV adoption when the technology and infrastructure are still developing. Until the gap in TCT for heavier-duty vehicles is narrowed or closed, we cannot expect many companies to make the transition, and, if required to convert in today’s market, we face more supply chain disruptions, transportation cost increases, and additional inflationary pressure.”

Due to the increase in costs for businesses, the potential inflationary impact on the entire economy per year is between 0.5% and 1%, according to the report. Inflation is already elevated, measuring 3.5% year-over-year in March, far from the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

Increased expense projections differ by state, with class 8 heavy-duty trucks costing 94% more per year in California compared to traditional trucks, due largely to a 501% increase in equipment costs, while cost savings on fuel only amounted to 52%. In Georgia, costs would be 114% higher due to higher equipment costs, labor costs, a smaller payload capacity and more.

The EPA also recently finalized rules mandating that 67% of all light-duty vehicles sold after 2032 be electric or hybrid. Around $1 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act has already been designated to be used by subnational governments in the U.S. to replace some heavy-duty vehicles with EVs, like delivery trucks or school buses.

The Biden administration has also had trouble expanding EV charging infrastructure across the country, despite allotting $7.5 billion for chargers in 2021. Current charging infrastructure frequently has issues operating properly, adding to fears of “range anxiety,” where EV owners worry they will become stranded without a charger.

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Economic progress stalling for Canada and other G7 countries

Published on May 10, 2024

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Jake Fuss

For decades, Canada and other countries in the G7 have been known as the economic powerhouses of the world. They generally have had the biggest economies and the most prosperous countries. But in recent years, poor government policy across the G7 has contributed to slowing economic growth and near-stagnant living standards.

Simply put, the Group of Seven countries—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States—have become complacent. Rather than build off past economic success by employing small governments that are limited and efficient, these countries have largely pursued policies that increase or maintain high taxes on families and businesses, increase regulation and grow government spending.

Canada is a prime example. As multiple levels of government have turned on the spending taps to expand programs or implement new ones, the size of total government has surged ever higher. Unsurprisingly, Canada’s general government spending as a share of GDP has risen from 39.3 per cent in 2007 to 42.2 per cent in 2022.

At the same time, federal and provincial governments have increased taxes on professionals, businessowners and entrepreneurs to the point where the country’s top combined marginal tax rate is now the fifth-highest among OECD countries. New regulations such as Bill C-69, which instituted a complex and burdensome assessment process for major infrastructure projects and Bill C-48, which prohibits producers from shipping oil or natural gas from British Columbia’s northern coast, have also made it difficult to conduct business.

The results of poor government policy in Canada and other G7 countries have not been pretty.

Productivity, which is typically defined as economic output per hour of work, is a crucial determinant of overall economic growth and living standards in a country. Over the most recent 10-year period of available data (2013 to 2022), productivity growth has been meagre at best. Annual productivity growth equaled 0.9 per cent for the G7 on average over this period, which means the average rate of growth during the two previous decades (1.6 per cent) has essentially been chopped in half. For some countries such as Canada, productivity has grown even slower than the paltry G7 average.

Since productivity has grown at a snail’s pace, citizens are now experiencing stalled improvement in living standards. Gross domestic product (GDP) per person, a common indicator of living standards, grew annually (inflation-adjusted) by an anemic 0.7 per cent in Canada from 2013 to 2022 and only slightly better across the G7 at 1.3 per cent. This should raise alarm bells for policymakers.

A skeptic might suggest this is merely a global phenomenon. But other countries have fared much better. Two European countries, Ireland and Estonia, have seen a far more significant improvement than G7 countries in both productivity and per-person GDP.

From 2013 to 2022, Estonia’s annual productivity has grown more than twice as fast (1.9 per cent) as the G7 countries (0.9 per cent). Productivity in Ireland has grown at a rapid annual pace of 5.9 per cent, more than six times faster than the G7.

A similar story occurs when examining improvements in living standards. Estonians enjoyed average per-person GDP growth of 2.8 per cent from 2013 to 2022—more than double the G7. Meanwhile, Ireland’s per-person GDP has surged by 7.9 per cent annually over the 10-year period. To put this in perspective, living standards for the Irish grew 10 times faster than for Canadians.

But this should come as no surprise. Governments in Ireland and Estonia are smaller than the G7 average and impose lower taxes on individuals and businesses. In 2019, general government spending as a percentage of GDP averaged 44.0 per cent for G7 countries. Spending for governments in both Estonia and Ireland were well below this benchmark.

Moreover, the business tax rate averaged 27.2 per cent for G7 countries in 2023 compared to lower rates in Ireland (12.5 per cent) and Estonia (20.0 per cent). For personal income taxes, Estonia’s top marginal tax rate (20.0 per cent) is significantly below the G7 average of 49.7 per cent. Ireland’s top marginal tax rate is below the G7 average as well.

Economic progress has largely stalled for Canada and other G7 countries. The status quo of government policy is simply untenable.