Posted on 01/24/2024 6:48:33 AM PST by lowbridge
Plastic consumption in New Jersey spiked by nearly three times following the state’s implementation of a strict ban on single-use plastic shopping bags, a study found.
"Following 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," Freedonia Custom Research (FCR), a business research division for MarketResearch.com, reported in a study published this month.
New Jersey implemented a ban on single-use plastic bags in 2022, the strictest ban on bags in the nation at the time, billing it as an effort to cut back on the plastic one-use bags piling up in landfills.
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Instead of having the intended beneficial impact on the environment, the reusable bag ban has actually backfired, data reported in the study show. Plastic consumption in the state has nearly tripled, with New Jerseyans previously consuming 53 million pounds of plastic before the ban, compared to 151 million pounds following the ban, FCR researchers reported.
Reusable bags made of non-woven polypropylene are much thicker than the typical single-use plastic bags typically found at grocery and convenience stores, using roughly 15 times the amount of plastic, the study reported. Though the bags are built for repeated shopping trips, most New Jerseyans only reuse the bags two to three times before they're discarded.
"[Six times] more woven and non-woven polypropylene plastic was consumed to produce the reusable bags sold to consumers as an alternative. Most of these alternative bags are made with non-woven polypropylene, which is not widely recycled in the United States and does not typically contain any post-consumer recycled materials. This shift in material also resulted in a notable environmental impact, with the increased consumption of polypropylene bags contributing to a 500% increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Officials hail the new bag legislation as a spectacular success as a windfall of bag fees have fortified the general fund.........
Paper bags are the most energy efficient, environmentally safe and sustainable solution to the ‘problem’..........................
I never saw the problem with platic bags, we’d get them from the supermarket (they weren’t super strong, but you’d figure out how to keep them from tearing, usually,) and tuck them in a cabinet and use them for wasterbaskets, kitty litter, whatever, in the house.
Then I vistited Boston Mass, and the things were everywhere, Blowing down the street, stuck in the trees and bushes. It was disgusting.
And they taked about getting rid of the bags to prevent litter.
The problem wasn’t the bags. The problem was the blue state city residents were slobs.
An interesting problem arose from this government stupidity-dramatic increases in theft from grocery stores. I have a friend who is a Regional Manager in one of the largest chains in NJ. She advises that people now just walk in and load up boxes, grocery carts, their arms, etcetera and just walk out the door. Very difficult for security to stop everyone as some of these people actually did pay for their goods but refused to buy the optional reusable bags.
She says that per store shrinkage has exploded.
Quite true. Same can be said for “gun violence”. It’s not the guns. It’s the culture. Many other sociological problems follow the same pattern.
I prefer the plastic bags. More sanitary and reusable for practical purposes as others have mentioned. And, it should not be a hard ship to save unneeded bags and return them to the recycle bins most grocery stores provide.
Cross the border into New York gets you the thin film plastic bags you need for dozens of uses including lining small wastebaskets.
Otherwise it’s an uninterrupted lifestyle dealing with New Jersey’s self-imposed retail bag foolishness and dysfunction!
She actually advises people to do this?
The bags are not the problem. The problem is people letting the bags get into the environment. Seems that the liberals don’t think people are capable of understanding and doing what’s right.
NJ keep voting Democratic…….
DUH.
Environmental policy has as much to do with saving the planet as CoupFlu policy has to do with protecting public health.
If that were true, paper bags would be cheaper. Price is roughly proportional to total energy consumption and pollution. Cardboard boxes, though, are a definite winner.
They were never single use for us. We would use them as mini garbage bags for food that would smell in a few days, rather than throw the food in regular garbage can in the house- which kept that can smell free-
Supermarkets don’t even volunteer to bag groceries anymore even with paper bags- you have to pay extra for a bag, and asking the cashier for a bag is like asking them to do a bit of extra work and they get pissed almost. They get really grumpy if they ring you out, and th3n you ask for bags to,be added in beczuse you forgot to ask while being rung out.
Shopping is such a joy these days /s
I agree. Almost never see one of these bags littering the highway. No reason to throw one out as litter, since they are going to be carrying something home. There was a picture once of a stretch of road in our area with blue grocery bags everywhere, but it was clearly a staged photo by activists. Never seen such a thing with my own eyes. I’d suspect your experience in Boston may have been the work of green weenies trying to make a point by showing how awful it is.
Meh. Paper grocery bags are notorious for feeding the cockroaches and mice/rats who eat the wet and decaying paper left even for a few days in a cabinet or beside a refrigerator.
The vermin eat the damp or humidity-soaked paper, use it to line their nests, then multiply rapidly.
my local Walmart doesn’t even offer the thicker plastic bags for 8 cents. They want you buy their “reusable “ bags.
go to a any protest about the environment and you will find the place trashed...Years ago when the tea party. would hold an event the organizers would try to leave the event locations cleaner than before the event.
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