Once again the law of unintended consequences is biting the statist left

So instead of thin plastic bags people are throwing out heavy plastic bags that used more resources to make and take up more space in landfills:

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-08-18/how-a-ban-on-plastic-bags-can-go-wrong

"When the city council in Austin, Texas, passed a single-use plastic shopping bag ban in 2013, it assumed environmental benefits would follow. The calculation was reasonable enough: Fewer single-use bags in circulation would mean less waste at city landfills.

Two years later, an assessment commissioned by the city finds that the ban is having an unintended effect –- people are now throwing away heavy-duty reusable plastic bags at an unprecedented rate. The city's good intentions have proven all too vulnerable to the laws of supply and demand....

...There's little doubt that targeted bans can mitigate these kinds of effects by cutting down on the use of single-use bags in the first place. In Austin, for example, a post-ban survey found that single-use plastic bags accounted for only 0.03 percent of the total litter collected in the city in 2015. Assuming the pre-ban rate was closer to the 0.12 percent in nearby Fort Worth, that marks a roughly 75 percent reduction of single-use plastic bags in Austin’s landfills.

But, as the Austin assessment pointedly notes, reducing the use of a product that's harmful to the environment is no guarantee of a positive environmental outcome. Among the main environmental benefits of Austin's ban was supposed to be a reduction in the amount of energy and raw materials used to manufacture the bags. To that end, the city encouraged residents to instead use reusable bags. Those bags have larger carbon footprints, due to the greater energy required to produce their stronger plastics, but the city figured the overall impact would be lower, as consumers got acquainted with the new, more durable product.
What the city didn't foresee is that residents would start treating reusable bags like single-use bags. The volume of reusable plastic bags now turning up at the city's recycling centers has become "nearly equivalent to the amount of all of the single use bags removed from the recycling stream as a result of the ordinance implemented in 2013," according to the assessment. And those lightly used bags are landfill-bound, because recycling isn't any more cost-effective for reusable plastic bags than the single-use variety.
Some of these issues could be addressed through the increased use of reusable canvas bags. But canvas is even more carbon intensive to produce than plastic; studies suggest consumers would need to use a single canvas bag around 130 times before they start achieving any net environmental benefit as compared with a single-use plastic bag. And, for some consumers, the higher price for canvas bags may be prohibitive, in any case."

That sucks. No doubt. I know I will regret asking, but what is your point?

In some places/countries, customers are charged a few cents for each plastic bag they use if they don't bring their bags. Since there is a cost for using the plastic bags, people typically remember to bring their bags.

And what about the recycled paper bags?

I must be dense, but where are these thick plastic bags originating?

rags3 said:
That sucks. No doubt. I know I will regret asking, but what is your point?

He thinks the regulations should have been tougher, maybe even banning disposable bags altogether.

hmm

When we shop at Aldi in PA, we purchase bags from Aldi for 10 cents apiece (Aldi does not provide free single use bags). These Aldi bags are favorites of ours as they are extra thick plastic with very good handles. When we get home, we save these Aldi bags and reuse them when needed. These Aldi bags are great for putting gifts in at Christmas, putting prepared meals when bringing these meals to relatives at holidays and for small recyclables.

But as the article indicates, many people do not act like you and treat those 10 cent bags as disposable and the charge as a part of the cost of shopping, as do many people in NYC with can deposits. Enough to keep the volume of waste the same as if thin bags were given away.

tom said:

rags3 said:
That sucks. No doubt. I know I will regret asking, but what is your point?

He thinks the regulations should have been tougher, maybe even banning disposable bags altogether.

Everything is disposable.

bramzzoinks said:

Everything is disposable.

Including you.

The planet too if you are an environmental statist like the OP

I think there is a bad assumption in there, too. The assumption appears to be that eliminating single use bags would reduce the amount of stuff in landfills. I wouldn't expect that to happen. Who would? I think the point of eliminating those bags is to reduce the amount they fly around the landscape OUTSIDE of landfills. They are very light weight, and they tend to blow around and get caught in gutters and trees. It is THAT problem that these laws can alleviate.

Also, unintended consequences happen in all kinds of places. It is not a reason to forego any particular kind of action. If you make a law that proves bad, repeal it or replace it. Not all new laws lead to unintended consequences. Some of them lead to the desired results.

Tom_Reingold said:
I think there is a bad assumption in there, too. The assumption appears to be that eliminating single use bags would reduce the amount of stuff in landfills. I wouldn't expect that to happen. Who would? I think the point of eliminating those bags is to reduce the amount they fly around the landscape OUTSIDE of landfills. They are very light weight, and they tend to blow around and get caught in gutters and trees. It is THAT problem that these laws can alleviate.

So now we are changing the rules for bags based on something, buy we're not sure based on what.

Maybe BEFORE we change the rules on anything, we should figure out why we need the change and what does the change buy us. Not changing for the sake of change.

BG9 said:

Tom_Reingold said:
I think there is a bad assumption in there, too. The assumption appears to be that eliminating single use bags would reduce the amount of stuff in landfills. I wouldn't expect that to happen. Who would? I think the point of eliminating those bags is to reduce the amount they fly around the landscape OUTSIDE of landfills. They are very light weight, and they tend to blow around and get caught in gutters and trees. It is THAT problem that these laws can alleviate.

So now we are changing the rules for bags based on something, buy we're not sure based on what.
Maybe BEFORE we change the rules on anything, we should figure out why we need the change and what does the change buy us. Not changing for the sake of change.

There is ample data available should you choose to look at it. Several countries are ahead of us on this issue, precisely because the data is so compelling.