Plastic Grocery Bag Bans

I did not know where else to discuss this so I decided to post it here:

The Dangers of Plastic Bags

The presentation argues that plastic grocery bags pose real risks to quality of life because plastic bags end in all sorts of places where they have no business.

I am not an environmentalist but I have used the cloth sacks for years because they are sturdy and do not break.

I guess the question here centers on property rights and how to internalize economically the costs of things like plastic bags that are currently externalized by dumping into international waters, etc.

I did find the dumping and consequent shore pollution disturbing and would like to see some thoughts on this posted.

I also find the banning of these bags by governments disturbingly intrusive. I understand why they ban them and can even sympathize with the desired end result. But I feel very uncomfortable with the means.

So I guess I "dissent" from the "turn a blind eye to unintended consequences" attitude that Objectivists sometimes express rather than from Objectivism itself.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 8/18, 8:31am)

Post 1

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 12:22pm

Luke:

Here's a study that shows paper bags to be much inferior to plastic from an environmental point of view.

Sam

B. Waste, Energy Consumption, Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The evidence does not support conventional wisdom that paper bags are a more

environmentally sustainable alternative than plastic bags. While this is certainly

counterintuitive for many people, relevant facts include the following:

1. Plastic bags generate 60% less greenhouse gas emissions than uncomposted

paper bags, and 79% less greenhouse gas emissions than composted paper bags.

The plastic bags generate 3,097 tons of CO2 equivalents per 100 million bags;

while uncomposted paper bags generate 7,621 tons, and composted paper bags

generate 14,558 tons, per 100 million bags produced.4

2. Plastic bags consume less than 4% of the water needed to make paper bags. It

takes 5,527 cubic meters of water to produce 100 million plastic bags, versus

145,729 cubic meters of water to produce 100 million paper bags.5

3. Plastic grocery bags consume 40% less energy during production and generate

80% less solid waste than paper bags.6 Significantly, even though traditional

disposable plastic bags are produced from fossil fuels, the total non-renewable

energy consumed during their lifecycle is no greater than the non-renewable

energy consumed during the lifecycle of paper and biodegradable plastic bags.7

4. Paper sacks generate 70 percent more air, and 50 times more water pollutants,

than plastic bags.8

5. It takes 91 percent less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to

recycle a pound of paper.9

6. After three uses, reusable plastic bags are superior to all types of disposable

bags --paper, polyethylene and compostable plastic -- across all significant
environmental indicators.10

Post 2

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 12:35pm

http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/92358/detail/

Navigate to the above link and watch the video on recycling by the comedy/magic team of Penn & Teller (at one time this video was linked to George Reisman's blog).

Extend private property rights to international waters and dumping of plastic bags in what is now a "free good" (i.e., the oceans) will end.

I was amused to see that Bangladesh banned plastic bags. That's the least of their worries.

Post 3

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 1:10pm

Thanks, guys. We get a weekly safety tip at work via e-mail and when this link came today with glowing reviews, I found it disturbing. So I replied all with a link to the study Sam cited just to maintain my reputation as Lord Buzz Killer.

Post 4

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 1:19pm

Hi Luke,

Under Objectivism, I think it'd wrong to punish the grocery stores by banning their use of plastic bags when it's their patrons who are failing to recycle or properly trash them. It's the patrons who are creating a negative externality by sending the bags to the bay. Solution: fine the patrons for instances of such paper bag littering so as to induce internalization of their negative externality. Of course, enforcing this solution is probably cost prohibitive and would probably yield poor results anyway, so I wouldn't vote for it. But nonetheless, I think that would be one Objectivist approach.

Alternatively, maybe Objectivists would accept the view that grocery stores are at least partly culpable because they know with reasonable certainty that some of their plastic bags will head to the bay. They know they are an inevitable link in this causal chain that results in the plastic bag problem. This should make them at least partly responsible. Solution: hold them responsible by fining them some amount for each of their wayward plastic bags. This will induce them either to switch off of plastic bags or to take further precautions to be sure the bags get recycled or properly trashed. It'd be easier to enforce and probably more effective.

Lastly, I'm not sure what Objectivists would think of the following, but a ban is necessary only if the negative externality cannot be reasonable obviated *and* only if the alternatives in light of that ban would be preferable. At this point, it's not clear to me whether paper bags are better than plastic (see Sam Erica's bit), so perhaps it's folly to promote *that* as the alternative. But cloth bags do seem better at avoiding the problems to which plastic and paper bags fall prey. Also, there's always the option of just using the grocery store's extra cardboard shipping crates that would otherwise be trashed or recycled right away. Costco and Sam's Club do this. And they appear to do it voluntarily. No ban needed! Because I'm not convinced the negative externality cannot be obviated via other means, I think a ban on plastic bags, at this time, is premature.

Jordan

Post 5

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 4:58pm

I love plastic grocery bags! I reuse them all the time to line small waste baskets in my home. I save them and reuse them for all kinds of things, really.

I agree that they are incredibly ugly hanging in trees and bushes, however. Or blowing around the road or beach. Nasty.

Post 6

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 5:32pm

I love plastic grocery bags! I reuse them all the time to line small waste baskets in my home.

Same here - save immensely on getting garbage bags, just double-line the basket..

Post 7

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 6:34pm

I walk my dog on a rural gravel road and she habitually poops on the road where others walk their dogs. I use a plastic grocery bag to pick it up, carry it to the verge, empty it, turn it inside out, tie a knot in it and put it in my pocket. Simple and effective. Of course I throw the bag away in the garbage, but it's served a secondary purpose. If I didn't have grocery bags for this I'd have to buy them.

Post 8

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 7:29pm

Plastic bags litter the streets and the fields. But they are a convenience may would not do without. Environmentalists fear they will dirty the environment for decades. Objectivists resist regulating businesses for undefined reaspons. Is there a reasoned way to regulate trash bags? Is there even a right to do so?

Read my article, Picking Up After Your Self

Post 9

Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - 12:05am

Excellent article, Ted, good fun to read!

I would add that the more property privately held, as opposed to public lands, streets, etc., the more littering becomes a private property issue. A minor point, but one that goes along with your clever observations.

Post 10

Monday, August 18, 2008 - 2:51pm

It's the patrons who are creating a negative externality by sending the bags to the bay. Solution: fine the patrons for instances of such paper bag littering so as to induce internalization of their negative externality.

What?!

You actually believe that "Little Miss Tuffett" (a patron of the grocery store), after buying a big container of Curds & Whey (which the bagger puts into a plastic bag for her) walks over to the bay...assuming her town, city, or state, even has a bay...and then personally disposes of her plastic bag?

In real life, Miss Tuffett goes home, puts the Curds & Whey in the fridge, and throws the plastic bag out in her garbage, which then makes its way down her apartment's garbage chute, and is put in a dumpster. The dumpster is picked up by the local city garbage collection agency.

So why should Little Miss Tuffett be fined?

Anyway, watch the Penn & Teller video. It debunks recycling and it's a riot too.

Post 11

Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - 9:42am

I hate them mostly - too small to be more than occasionally useful. I liked the old-fashioned big paper bags:

1) I could carry a lot in one bag, so 2 or 3 bags is easier for me than a dozen tiny plastic baggies. I DID like the plastic around a bag for easier carrying and reinforcement.

2) I then used the bag again for trash, saving me money on trash bags.

Post 12

Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - 10:20am

Claude,

The solution was to fine Tuffett for littering when she does *not* throw the bag into the garbage chute. She gets a fine for littering. That, I think, would be an Objectivist solution.

Jordan
(Edited by Jordan on 8/19, 10:58am)

Post 13

Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - 7:34pm

Were the stores charging patrons for plastic bags, the patrons would then be taking title of the bags, and would be fully responsible for their disposition. Giving bags away for free is tantamount to littering by the stores - no different from the store putting a coupon flyer under your windshield while you are in their parking lot. The store cannot claim immunity from punishment for a field full of flyers by using the fiction that the flyers are not their property - no consideration has been paid for their transfer. Legally, both the store itself is liable for the disposal of the bags, as well as the patron being subject to punishment if he litters. This is the legal principle of joint liability. One cannot "do" law from an armchair - some knowledge of existing legal principles, more than the "wisdom" Claude and Jordan have shown is necessary. The Objectivist position is to require private and individual ownership and responsibility, and recognition of real harms.

Post 14

Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - 10:22pm

Ted,

I dunno. If I were a lawyer for the store, I'd be feeling pretty confidant in my defense. Perhaps you might have suggested a better example than flyers. Flyers are (generally unwanted) advertising place on their customers windsheild wipers when no-one is looking (I would like to prosecute for that). The bags are provided by the store as a service, which, taken in context, is necessary to the sale of their merchandise. The bags are not really free - they are part of the purchase, and their cost is included in the price of the goods. Thus at the point money changes hands, they do become the sole responsibility of the shopper.

As to paper or plastic, I like plastic better too, although my wife would prefer that I use the cloth bags that she's purchased. Unless it's for boat stuff or computing, I just really don't enjoy shopping, so I mostly avoid it.

jt

Post 15

Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - 11:29pm

Convenience and necessity are two different things. the convenience of the store keeper is not necessity, stores existed long before even paper bags were used. If you think that plastic bags are a necessity to sales, then maybe you would make a good lawyer, but not a good historian. I will grant that the issue is open, and that law needs to be settled. This simply means it should be codified, and here I will assume you grant that my argument would both stand up in legislative debate, and that any such law would be upheld by a court. I am generally interested in solving the issue at hand, which I am satified I have done.

Post 16

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 - 12:56am

Ted Would Put A Title Here

Ted writes:

Well, you really surprised me with this view Ted. If the store charged for the bag, only then would the customer be taking possession??? Ouch, you're hurting my head with this pretzel logic. Queue Steely Dan. (If you were me, you'd include a picture of the album cover right about, oh I'd say, ....... HERE!)

Come on now. The price of the bag is built into the cost of the items purchased in the store. The store is not simply handing out free bags. They are offering the bags as a convenience for their customers to transport their purchases. They offer them because the customers need and want them and the marginal cost is so low that it makes more economic sense to include the price in the stores overhead markup than try to monetize each bag. The store intends for the bags to be used as transportation devices and everyone, including the customers know this. No one has an interest in seeing them become litter. The fact that they do is the result of a lack of attention or caring by certain people, whom, for lack of a better word, I like to kindly refer to as STUPID SHITS!

The world is full of them, but just because you don't like or agree with their actions, is no excuse for transferring their responsibilities onto innocent third parties. Everyone is free to devise a strategy to address this problem in a voluntary way. Stores can add a unit charge for each bag if they would like to attempt to raise awareness of the problem - but they may alienate their customers in doing so. (How are you feeling about the airline baggage charges these days?) Anyone is free to use their own reusable shopping bags if they like and I've never heard of a store that complained about that. And there are plenty of litter laws on the books, so if the problem becomes too great, stepping up enforcement would be a possibility. Of course, some simple public education could also go a long way to improving the situation. However, as a society, we long ago abandoned the idea of trying to persuade people to change their behavior, when we discovered just how much fun we were missing out on when we could use force to get the same results. And with that approach, you get the bonus of a massive increase in resentment by just about everyone which insures that most will be even more willing to resort to force against others when the next issue arises.

So when you start talking about store liability for littering caused by their customers, I suggest that you might need to adjust your Objectivist spectacles a bit and take another pass at this. :-)

Regards,
--
Jeff

(Edited by C. Jeffery Small on 8/20, 12:59am)

Post 17

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 - 2:25am

Jeff's comments make me think we should be more ambitious. We have lots of problems like that of littering. And a great many of them have that same root cause: STUPID SHITS.

What we need are much harsher penalties for all laws (assuming they are laws that meet Objectivist standards in the first place) when they are violated only, or even mostly by STUPID SHITS.

And we need to make shifts in how teachers respond to the kinds of classroom behavior that constitute behaving like a STUPID SHIT.

It is the STUPID SHITS we need to get rid - much more than plastic bags by the road-side.

Any ideas on how to campaign for this? :-)

Post 18

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 - 6:34am

T-shirts with "Down With Stupid Shits" on them? ;-)

Post 19

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 - 9:04am