News of the World

[kyonides]

Plastic Grocery Bag Bans Actually Boost Sale
of Small Plastic Garbage Bags

Researchers have discovered that bans and fees on plastic carryout grocery bags (CGB) could have serious unintended consequences.

The investigators found that both bag fees and outright prohibitions boosted the sale of 4-gallon and 8-gallon plastic bags—in line with the view that many consumers reuse their supposedly single-use bags as garbage bags around the house.

“The effect of a 5¢ fee for either paper or plastic CGBs is essentially the same as that of a ban on plastic bag and a fee of 10 or 15¢ on paper bags. While policy makers may choose fees over bans in order to soften the blow, our results suggest that the overall effect on consumers is little different,” wrote the authors, professor Richard Woodward of Texas A&M University (TAMU) and Yu-Kai Huang of both TAMU and the University of Georgia.
...
Huang and Woodward found that plastic bag laws did not impact the sale of larger bags, lending additional support to the view that small plastic garbage bags end up substituting for the regulated grocery bags.
...
Carryout plastic bag bans have been passed in California, New York, Maine, Vermont, Oregon, Hawaii, Delaware, and Connecticut.

Such bags have also been banned in China, New Zealand, and many other countries, including several African countries.

In Kenya, for instance, people caught producing, importing, or using banned plastic bags can suffer major fines or even imprisonment.

One thing is to prevent people from polluting the surrounding area with plastic bags and another to expect the world to be clean just because politicians forbid you from using them anywhere. The truth is that large companies like CocaCola are still polluting the seas with microplastics.
Don't blame me for letting you know about this!  Blame the BBC for  reporting it.