Plastic bags redux

I will be frantically busy for the next week, so blogging will be light.  One last thought before the blackout:

A few months ago, I argued against the very vocal campaign to ban plastic bags in Austin.  I argued that the save-landfill-space argument was dumb.  I argued that the reduce-petroleum-and-therefore-greenhouse-gases argument was dumb.  No one offered a convincing rebuttal, and I still believe these are flimsy arguments at best.  

Plastic bags do end up as litter sometimes.  But I didn't see any particular reason to treat plastic bags differently than other litter in waiting.  If we want to impose a tax on bags to discourage their use, we ought to do the same with fast-food sacks and sandwich wrappers.

That never sat right with me, though.  After thinking about this issue in the shower for eight solid months, I've concluded that there is one difference between plastic bags and other forms of litter:

Property owners do not have an incentive to pick up plastic bags.

The main externality from litter is that we have to look at it.  Fortunately, property owners usually have an incentive to clean it up.  Heavier litter usually stays where it falls.  If I find a beer bottle on my property, I will pick it up, because I know it will be there the next day, and the next, and the next.

Plastic bags are different because they will simply blow away.  I know that, so even if a plastic bag lands on my property, why take the time to pick it up and put it in the trash (other than altruism)?  I won't have to worry about it after the next breeze.

A case in point:  About two months after my plastic-bag piece, I spotted a plastic bag stuck in a tree in front of my house.  I thought that was funny, so I snapped a picture and posted it.  In my excitement, I forgot to pull the bag out of the tree.  It occurred to me a few days later that I had never thrown away the bag -- and, of course, by then it was gone.  Someone else's problem, I guess.

Comments

[Tim]

I think plastic bags are interesting because they are perhaps much more about psychology than economics. While I think your economic point is valid, I think they're also an example of a ubiquitous technology that has no real valid purpose. They're a way to start talking about the amount of waste that we generate. Do we need plastic bags? No. Are they even particularly convenient? Not really.

Our current model is:
1) Go to store and get things in bags.
2) Take bags home and pile up in bag
3) Take enormous bag of bags back to store for recycling.

You could change the plastic bags to cloth bags with no change in this system. So there's really no point to plastic bags other than the fact that they were essentially "free" for both customers and retailers. Since cloth bags biodegrade nicely and can be reused they become a way to start factoring ideas of degrading the commons into our day to day discussions.

It'd be interesting (although never going to happen) to see what would happen if the city required retailers to essentially give away cloth bags for free, and reuse ones that are brought back in for recycling.

[M1EK]

The key difference is that free grocery store plastic bags are good substitutes for non-free trash bags that you'd otherwise have to buy at a store (for dog poop duty, or just general trash use).

We use all ours for the combination of the dog and as kitchen trash bags (still haven't brought our can in after a combination of fun events involving the then-toddler and the dog and the trash).

So there are differences - I wouldn't throw a cloth bag away like that. That being said, I'd be happy to pay for those plastic bags if everybody else did.

[heyzeus]

M1EK, you are not alone in your usage patterns of plastic bags. I talked to a good friend who works for the polyethylene division of a big oil/chemicals company this weekend, and asked her how plastic bag bans have affected their business. She says that their bag sales have actually remained almost the same in markets that banned the bags, because people then buy bags to use in their trashcans, as pet cleanup, etc.

One could argue, of course, that the bags that consumers purchase are less likely to end up as debris in creeks and vegetation, but they're still just as likely, or more likely, to end up permanently in landfills. I can't see many purchased plastic bags getting recycled.

[el_longhorn]

I have thought the exact same thing about our plastic bags - we use them for dirty diapers, dog poop duty, wet clothes after swimming, etc. It would not break my heart if they were banned, but we would have to find replacements.

[Ian]

Guys, you're kidding yourself if you think your plastic bag usage trends carry over to the general population. I'd say most of the posters in this realm of the blogosphere tend to be a little more environmentally conscious than your average homo sapien and probably go out of their way to triple-R. Just go shopping sometime at Fiesta (a favorite haunt of mine when I was in Austin) and watch people roll their oversized carts out full of underutilized plastic bags. There's no WAY all those plastic bags are being reused every week!

And MOST people aren't sacking up their bags and taking them back to the store for recycling. I'm gradually seeing more and more of it, but my local grocer only added a recycling bin a couple months ago, and until recently it only contained gum wrappers and coke cans. Encouragingly, however, I'm seeing more and more people bring in their own reusable sacks, and the cashiers don't look at my with screwy faces anymore when I bring in my own.

[mathew]

Why not just ban *non-biodegradable* plastic bags?

Sure, biodegradable bags cost a little more, but stores could always charge for them if people need them.

[bittergradstudent]

Ireland apparently did very well with imposing a 5 Euro cent tax per plastic bag that, by law, had to explicitly be included on the register of shops. People started quickly avoiding this (pretty trivial) expense, and the waste that got left on streets declined very quickly. And people still got to have their bags.

[AC]

Yeah, a tax is the way to go. I thought the Irish tax was higher than that for some reason.

[bittergradstudent]

You might be right. I was going completely from memory.

[bittergradstudent]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2205419.stm

15 Euro cents.

It cut consumption by 90%, with minimal annoyance to everyone. I wish people seeking to solve problems would go and do a survey of extant solutions.