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C-October 24,2019
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A-DW Publishing
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C-July 23,2019
R-N/A
A-Kay  Vandette
A-N/A
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C-May 28,2019
R-N/A
A-Amelia Womack, Emma Revell
A-N/A
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C-APRIL 25, 2018
R-N/A
A- Imogen Calderwood
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C-October 25, 2018
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C-January 28, 2020
R-It agrees with my claim
A-Stephanie Vermillion
A-No
P-Inform of what single use plastics are

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In early January 2020, China joined the growing movement of more than 120 countries pledging to ban single-use plastics. The country of 1.4 billion citizens is the No. 1 producer of plastic waste in the world. It topped 60 million tons (54.4 million metric tons) in 2010 based on a September 2018 report titled " Plastic Pollution."

But China announced it plans to outlaw the production and sale of non-degradable bags by the end of 2020 in major cities (and everywhere by 2022), as well as single-use straws by late 2020. Markets selling produce will have until 2025 to follow suit.

The push to ban plastic took center stage in 2018 with massive promotions like the award-winning # StopSucking campaign, which featured stars like NFL quarterback Tom Brady and his wife Gisele Bündchen and Hollywood actor Adrian Grenier pledging to give up single-use plastic straws. Now countries and companies are saying no to plastics by the dozens, and consumers are following along with them.

As the plastics-ban movement hits major milestones - such as China's latest announcement - we decided to define the bottles, bags and straws that are causing this global stir.

What Is Single-use Plastic?

True to its name, a single-use plastic is disposable plastic that's designed to be used once then tossed or recycled. This includes everything from plastic water drink bottles and produce bags to disposable plastic razors and plastic ribbon - really any plastic item you use then immediately discard. While these items can be recyclable, Megean Weldon of the blog and waste-prevention shop Zero Waste Nerd says that's hardly the norm.

"In reality, very few plastic items can be processed into new materials and products," she says in an email. "Unlike glass and aluminum, plastic isn't processed into the same item it was when it was collected by a recycling center. The quality of plastic is downgraded, so eventually, and inevitably, that plastic will still end up in a landfill."

Take a plastic water bottle. Most bottles say they can be recycled - and based solely on their easily recyclable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) composition, they could be. But nearly seven out of 10 bottles end up in landfills or tossed as litter. This problem increased when China decided to stop accepting and recycling plastic in 2018. For municipalities, that meant recycling became significantly pricier, according to The Atlantic, so many municipalities are now simply opting for the budget-friendly landfill over recycling.

Pair this landfill-first approach with the world's ever-growing plastic consumption - humans produce almost 20,000 plastic bottles per second, according to The Guardian and America's waste grew by 4.5 percent from 2010 to 2015 - it's no wonder the world is overflowing with plastic waste.

Plastic Could Outlive Us All

Think banning all of this plastic is overkill? There are some very solid reasons why it makes sense. First, plastic in landfills just doesn't go away. According to Weldon, a plastic bag takes 10 to 20 years to degrade, while a plastic bottle takes almost 500 years. And, even when it's "gone," its remnants remain.

"Plastic never breaks down or goes away; it only breaks into smaller and smaller pieces until they're so microscopic they can be found in our air and our drinking water," Kathryn Kellogg, author and founder of the waste-reduction website Going Zero Waste, says via email.

Some grocery stores have switched to biodegradable plastic shopping bags as a way to meet consumers in the middle, but research shows this is hardly a savvy solution. One study from researchers at the University of Plymouth in England analyzed 80 single-use plastic grocery store bags made of biodegradable plastic over the course of three years. Their goal? Determine just how "biodegradable" these bags really were. Their findings were published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Soil and seawater didn't lead to bag degradation. Instead, three of the four types of biodegradable bags were still sturdy enough to hold up to 5 pounds (2.2 kilograms) of groceries (as were the non-biodegradable bags). Those exposed to sun did break down - but that's not necessarily positive either. The small particles from degradation can quickly spread through the environment - think air, ocean or the belly of hungry animals who mistake plastic fragments for food.

Can't We Just Reuse Single-use Plastic?

Another reason many countries are prohibiting single-use plastics is because they shouldn't be reused, despite our best intentions. As many municipalities forego recycling, it's tempting to take matters into your own hands by reusing (and therefore "recycling") plastic bottles and containers. Sure, this may work for bags, but experts say to take caution when it comes to plastic bottles or food containers. One study in Environmental Health Perspectives showed that all plastics used in food containers and plastic bottles could release harmful chemicals if used repeatedly. (This includes those said to be free of bisphenol A [BPA] - a controversial chemical that's been linked to hormonal disruptions.)

While researchers are still analyzing the safety of repeated plastic reuse, experts recommend glass or metal to avoid potentially harmful chemicals. And according to Weldon, it's time we adopt a reuse mindset - be it cotton produce bags, stainless steel straws or a full-on zero-waste.

"The worst thing about any single-use item is that we devalue something to the point that we intend to throw it away," she says. "The convenience culture has normalized this destructive behavior and as result, we produce millions of tons of it every single year. If we change our mindset on what we consume, we will be more aware of the single-use plastic we use and how we can avoid it."
This story is a part of Covering Climate Now's week of coverage focused on Climate Solutions, to mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Covering Climate Now is a global journalism collaboration committed to strengthening coverage of the climate story.

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What Are Single-use Plastics and Should They Be Banned?

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In early January 2020, China joined the growing movement of more than 120 countries pledging to ban single-use plastics. The country of 1.4 billion citizens is the No. 1 producer of plastic waste in the world. It topped 60 million tons (54.4 million metric tons) in 2010 based on a September 2018 report titled " Plastic Pollution."

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C-October 16, 2019
R-It agrees with my claim
A-None
A-no
P-to inform

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Millions of tons of plastic enter the environment every year, killing wildlife, releasing toxins, clogging drains, and marring landscapes. Bans or restrictions on single-use plastics-most commonly bags and straws-have exploded in popularity recent years as a means of addressing these problems. Over 125 nations and 240 U.S. cities and counties have banned or taxed plastic bags, several cities have banned or otherwise restricted the use of plastic straws, and several private companies, including Starbucks, have also taken steps to reduce their straw usage in response to widespread consumer pressure.

Yet, these bans remain controversial. Some businesses have pushed back against what they consider excessive regulation. Those in opposition have noted that some populations, including those with disabilities, may require the use of a plastic straw, and that taxes on plastic bags may constitute a regressive tax. Even the environmental benefits are far from certain: when plastic shopping bags are banned, use of other bags that are potentially worse for the environment -including thicker plastic bags using more plastic, or paper bags, with a larger carbon footprint - increases. Others maintain that banning single-use plastics uses valuable political capital that could instead be spent advancing more urgent and system agendas like transitioning to a low-carbon economy.

Our panelists explored the benefits and challenges of an increasingly popular, and increasingly contentious, approach to the problem of plastic pollution.

Panelists:
Lillian Power, Environmental Protection Specialist, District of Columbia Department of Energy & Environment (DOEE), Moderator Catherine Plume, Principal, BlueGreen Plume, LLC and Managing Director, (r)evolve
Matt Seaholm, Executive Director, American Progressive Bag AllianceJean-Cyril Walker, Partner, Keller and Heckman LLP

ELI members will have access to materials/a recording of this session (usually posted w/in 48 hours). If you are not an ELI member but would like to have access to archived sessions like this one, go HERE to see the many benefits of membership and how to join.

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Millions of tons of plastic enter the environment every year, killing wildlife, releasing toxins, clogging drains, and marring landscapes. Bans or restrictions on single-use plastics-most commonly bags and straws-have exploded in popularity recent years as a means of addressing these problems. Over 125 nations and 240 U.S.

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C-JUN 24, 2019
R-It agrees with my claim
A-John Hite
A-No
P-to inform

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At the outset of efforts to combat the plastic pollution crisis, local and state governments across the U.S. are focused on banning single-use plastic bags. CLF is also committed to passing bag bans in each New England state and has covered the many reasons why plastic bags should be outlawed in previous blogs.

As these efforts gain headway, however, several studies have emerged challenging the effectiveness of bag bans. These studies - and their coverage in the media - are causing some confusion among consumers and legislators.

We want to set the record straight since studies critiquing plastic bag bans don't account for the broader scope of plastics - and they shouldn't be taken as an excuse not to ban bags at all.

Plastic Bags' Carbon Footprint and Toxicity - Both Matter

The list of studies and reports on the dangers of plastic seems to get longer by the day - our plastic problem clearly has become a crisis. The production, use, and disposal of plastic are all bad for human health and the environment, as plastic is rarely recycled or even recyclable. According to National Geographic, if the plastics industry were a country, it'd be the fourth largest carbon emitter after China, the U.S., and India.

Still, some argue that plastic grocery bags are not part of the carbon problem. The Environment Agency in the U.K. released a report in 2011 that shows the carbon impact of paper, reusable plastic, and cotton bags is higher than single-use plastic bags when considering the production, use, and disposal of each. According to the report, a cotton bag would need to be used 131 times to have a lower effect on the climate.

What this report doesn't include is any attempt to calculate the toxicity of plastic or the dangers of littering plastic bags. Surely its conclusion would be different were it to factor in:

What's more, when fees on paper bags are included in single-use plastic bag bans, consumers are more likely to bring reusable bags. A cotton bag can be used thousands of times, and you can even compost it once you're done with it. When taking all of this into account, the report's sole focus on carbon analysis is deceptive because using plastic is always more toxic and polluting than the alternatives.

Bans aren't Perfect, But They Still Work

A more recent study from a researcher at the University of Sydney found that California's bag ban led to a moderate increase in paper bag usage and pushed some customers to buy thicker plastic bags. The study suggests these thicker bags were purchased to replace the secondary use of free, single-use plastic bags as trashcan liners or to pick up pet waste. As a comparison of weight, the study reported that 28.5% of the plastic reduced through a bag ban was offset by shifting consumption to other bags.

The upshot of the Sydney study is that the California bag ban reduced plastic bag consumption by 71.5% - a huge decrease. It also took 100% of those plastic grocery bags out of the recycling system, where they bound up machinery and increased costs. The ban also kept them from littering neighborhoods and the environment.

While the Sydney study is cited as a criticism of bag bans, it also shows how successful they are in reducing plastic bag use. The study also indicates that bans don't go far enough to end the plastic crisis.

Bag Bans are the Starting Line, Not the End Goal

Plastic is always the wrong option. It pollutes and is toxic throughout its production and use. What's more, it poses a deadly threat to marine and land-based life and must always be burned or buried, even after being recycled a few times. Although bag bans won't solve the plastic crisis on their own, they do help to change plastic consumption habits and cause consumers and retailers to be more open to alternatives.

That's why CLF's Zero Waste Project is focused on passing bag bans, while also working to reduce plastic use overall - including any single-use plastics designed for disposal. Our Plastic Free New England campaign embodies that effort - to move towards a New England with no disposable plastic options.

Banning single-use plastic bags is a small but critical first step towards tackling the plastic crisis. The consideration and adoption of bag bans have already played a crucial role in drawing attention to the harms of plastic and has pushed people to examine their plastic consumption habits.

That's why we're celebrating recent victories in Maine and Vermont, where bag bans were just signed into law. Vermont even went a step further, passing the most comprehensive plastic bill in the country. Not only did the state ban single-use bags, but also polystyrene. And plastic straws are now available only by request.

Now, we need Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire to follow suit. So let's get statewide bag bans passed, New England!

UPDATE: The COVID-19 pandemic has meant a temporary return to single-use plastic - public officials and businesses throughout New England have curbed the use of reusable coffee cups, delayed plastic bag bans, and temporarily banned reusable bags from grocery stores. These decisions were made to protect public health, but in the past few months the following facts have come to light:

The driving force linking COVID-19 with reusable bags was not public health officials, but the plastics industry;

Evidence and statements from the public health community make clear that there is no known contact transmission of the coronavirus on any surface, including reusable bags; and

Even if the coronavirus were to be transmitted via contact, the virus has a longer life on plastic than other materials.

Meanwhile, producing, using, and disposing of single-use plastic continue to pollute the environment and our bodies. In many cases, communities harmed by air pollution from plastic production facilities and incinerators - primarily environmental justice communities - are also at greater risk from COVID-19.

But we can protect public health and the environment by moving away from single-use and towards new systems that are safer and more sustainable.

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The Truth about Plastic Bag Bans. Tackling plastic pollution will take more than bag ban, but we have to start somewhere...

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C-August 27, 2019
R-It agrees with my claim and it answers the question.
A-Mathew Zeitlin
A-No
P-To inform people of the danger of plastic bags in the environment.

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The policy: Plastic bag bans and taxes

Where: In more than 400 states and cities in the US

In place since: 2007
The problem:
Plastic bags are forever. The thin sacks that hold our groceries, toothpaste, and takeout meals have little hope of being recycled, and instead just might be reused as liners for our trash cans or containers for our dogs' waste, after which they find themselves either blown into storm drains and rivers or hopelessly clogging landfills. According to one 2009 estimate, some 100 billion of these bags were used a year in the United States and somewhere between 500 billion and 1.5 trillion worldwide.
How it worked:
More than 400 laws and ordinances across the country ban or tax plastic bags, according to Jennie Romer, an attorney at the Surfrider Foundation and a leading advocate and expert on plastic bag policies. The bans actually started outside the United States, with Bangladesh banning them countrywide in 2002 and Pakistan announcing recently that it, too, will ban single-use plastic bags. "Our slight change in habits will do miracles for future generations," one politician wrote.

In the United States, bans were spurred by a wide range of environmental groups, especially those concerned with oceans and waterways like the Surfrider Foundation. Plastic bags and other plastic products can easily wind up in rivers, storm drains, and oceans, creating massive floating patches of garbage and threatening marine life. (Activists are already moving on from plastic bags to encouraging bans on plastic straws and foam food containers.) California passed the first statewide ban in 2014, after several local governments had already banned single-use plastic, including San Francisco, which did so in 2007.

While a straightforward ban may seem like the most effective way to stop people from using plastic, researchers and consultants suggest another strategy is working better: a tax on all non-reusable bags, which may or may not be combined with an outright ban on some plastic.

That's because straightforward bans can lead to skyrocketing use of paper bags or thicker plastic that's allowed because it's considered reusable. While paper bags do not have the unique environmental downsides of single-use plastic (they can be recycled more easily and they don't blow around as much), the processing of paper can be environmentally nasty. California's ban, which also places a 10-cent tax on paper or reusable bags, is one of the most extensive in the nation, while all of Hawaii's counties have passed laws that ban single-use bags, with some also tacking on a tax as high as 15 cents on other bags.

This has led to some backlash, including lawsuits from the plastics industries and efforts to roll back the laws. More than a dozen states, typically more conservative ones like Oklahoma or Mississippi, have passed laws that preempt local bag policies and put the question of taxes or bans solely in the hands of the state legislature.

Chicago banned thin plastic bags in 2015, but it allowed stores to use thicker plastic bags that could ostensibly be reused. "When that ban went into effect, the retailers' response was that 'Our customers want plastic, we can't offer thin, let's just start offering thick plastic bags," said Tatiana Homonoff, an assistant professor of economics and public policy at New York University who has studied the plastic bag laws. The resilience of stores giving their customers some kind of plastic bag, she says, was "an unintended consequence of leaving close substitutes unregulated." Chicago soon scrapped that policy and by February 2017 had implemented a new law: a 7-cent tax on all checkout bags.

"That's where we see big changes in disposable bag use," Homonoff said.

A study of the law by Homonoff and researchers at the University of Chicago and consulting firm ideas42 found that after the new policy went into effect, "Customers were much less likely to use a disposable bag, and switched to reusable bags or no bags at all." Before the tax, about 80 percent of Chicago consumers used disposable bags and fewer than 10 percent used no bags at all. In the year after it went into effect, "the tax led to a large decrease in the proportion of consumers using a disposable bag, with roughly half of consumers switching to reusable bags while the rest opted for no bags at all."

According to Homonoff's research in both Chicago and Montgomery County, Maryland, "very small financial incentives can lead to big behavioral change," she said. The fact that small fees, 5 or 7 cents, can lead to a big reduction in disposable bag use suggests that a sizable portion of the population is perfectly happy to use a reusable bag or not use a bag at all, and need just the smallest push to get there. Homonoff said that in her surveys, people would tell her, "I have a reusable bag in my car. Now I bring it into the store and actually use it."

"As long as there is a fee component in place, that really drives people to not want to get that bag," Romer said. "You see people walking out with something pressed under the arm."

In Montgomery County, which implemented a 5-cent bag fee, the portion of customers observed by researchers at eight stores in the county who used disposable bags went from 82 percent to 40 percent, while the number of bags per trip also fell, according to Homonoff's research. Beyond any environmental effects, these policies also seem to be changing the culture around single-use plastic, which many people know is environmentally damaging but still need a slight nudge to change their behavior. Alongside the bans, there's been a surge of public awareness of the persistence of plastic waste and the folly of recycling it.

And these policies have real effects downstream - literally. San Jose, California, implemented its Bring Your Own Bag Ordinance in 2012, which included a ban on single-use plastic and a 10-cent fee for paper, and found dramatic decreases in "bag litter" in the city's creeks and waterways. "The litter surveys demonstrated a reduction in bag litter of approximately 89 percent in the storm drain system," a city environment and transportation committee report read, "60 percent in the creeks and rivers, and 59 percent in city streets and neighborhoods, when compared to data collected from 2010 and/or 2011 (pre-ordinance) to data from 2012 (post-ordinance)."

What drove the decrease in litter wasn't just more people using more reusable bags - although that happened - but also a rise in using no bags. Reusable bag use jumped from about 4 percent of bags, the city said, to 62 percent, while the portion of people who used no bag doubled, and the average number of bags used per customer fell from three to fewer than one.

The Ferguson Foundation, a Washington, DC-area nonprofit group that organizes cleanup efforts in and around the Potomac River, found that after DC implemented a 5-cent fee in 2010 on single-use bags, the number of plastic bags removed by volunteers dropped by almost three-quarters.

But the preferred policy of the advocates and researchers isn't being implemented everywhere. After the New York City Council approved a 5-cent fee for all takeout bags, the state legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo killed it before later passing a statewide law that banned plastic and allowed individual counties to impose a tax on paper.

"From what we've seen in other cities, it's not going to be particularly effective," Homonoff said of the New York law, as opposed to a tax on all takeaway bags. Romer, who worked on previous attempts to implement plastic laws in New York City, described the new law as "disappointing." While New York City is following through by taxing paper, it is not required across the state, which means that outside the city, municipalities might allow for unlimited and untaxed paper bag usage, thus not encouraging overall bag usage to go down.

"We really want people to not get a bag at all if they're getting an item or two, or bring their own bag," Romer said. "I like visiting California to see that that works."
Correction: Matthew Zeitlin is a writer in New York. An earlier version of this story misstated that an estimated 500 million to 1.5 trillion plastic bags are used each year worldwide. It should be 500 billion.

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Do plastic bag taxes or bans curb waste? 400 cities and states tried it out.

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The policy: Plastic bag bans and taxes Where: In more than 400 states and cities in the US In place since: 2007 The problem: Plastic bags are forever.

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Study supports plan to ban single-use plastics

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C-July 3, 2018
R-It disagrees with my claim
A-Stephanie Bedo
A-No
R-To inform of the damage and how banning plastic bags might not save the oceans after all.

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Shoppers in the West are struggling to see how stopping their use of plastic bags is going to make a difference - and it's even harder when there are studies to support that view.

One of those studies shows that plastic debris is primarily carried into the sea by large rivers - and the top 10 worst culprits aren't in the United States.

With debate raging amid the cessation of free, single-use plastic bags at major supermarkets in Australia, the latest Western country to tackle the issue, researchers are also working to quantify the environmental impact of plastic.

Researchers in Germany said that in order to take practical measures to reduce plastic input, it was necessary to answer these initial questions: "Where does all the plastic come from anyhow? And how does it get into the sea?"

In October, Christian Schmidt and his team at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) addressed these questions in a report and found that the 10 river systems with the highest plastic loads - eight of them in Asia and two in Africa - were responsible for about 90 percent of the global input of plastic into the sea.

In these countries, the problem often is the plastic is not disposed of properly in the respective river catchment area.

"Halving the plastic input from the catchment areas of these rivers would already be a major success," the hydrogeologist said.

"To achieve this, it will be necessary to improve the waste management and raise public awareness for the issue."

"We hope that our study will make a contribution to a positive development so that the plastic problem in our oceans can be curbed in the long run," Schmidt said.

But experts have said the key issue to note in the study and Schmidt's comments was public awareness.

The plastic bag ban has been implemented by all state governments across Australia except for New South Wales - where the major supermarkets have taken it upon themselves to remove the bags from their stores - in response to the fact that the single-use bags cause major environmental problems.

In the United States, meanwhile, plastic bag bans are being implemented on a state-by-state basis. California, for example, banned single-use plastic bags in 2016, according to the Sierra Club, while Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently introduced a plastic ban bill in New York.

Sankar Bhattacharya, a chemical engineering professor at Monash University in Australia, said that, like brushing your teeth after a meal, reducing, recycling and reusing was "just the right thing to do."

"Research suggests grocery bags could take anywhere from 500 to 1,000 years to degrade - not exactly a shining legacy to leave for future generations," he said.

"Now that China has stopped taking our trash, we're scrambling to figure out how to keep all those good intentions out of the landfill.

"Time is of the essence. The Chinese embargo means that everything we sold to them has to find another home - and right now, that's the landfill. Once plastic is there, it's there to stay."

Thavamani Palanisami, an environmental researcher at the University of Newcastle in Australia, said banning all single-use plastic was a crucial measure that needed to be taken for our planet's wellbeing, but there was also a vital next step.

"All the present tags used for plastic such as 'biodegradable,' 'bio-based,' '100 percent degradable' etc only confuse the public, making them assume that they are doing the right thing by using these bags," he said.

"The lack of awareness about plastic and its behavior in the environment is another issue."

Professor Stephen Smith, director of the National Marine Science Center at Southern Cross University, said Australia had an opportunity to be a regional leader in the eradication of plastic waste.

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Plastic bag ban might not save our oceans after all

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Shoppers in the West are struggling to see how stopping their use of plastic bags is going to make a difference - and it's even harder when there are studies to support that view. One of those studies shows that plastic debris is primarily carried into the sea by large rivers - and the top 10 worst culprits aren't in the United States.

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C-Jul 3, 2017

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Here's Why Plastic Is SO MUCH Worse Than You Think!