> Single-use plastic bags pose outsized problems in the form of visual pollution on the landscape -- South Africans joke that plastic bags are their "national flower," due to their propensity to hang on branches -- and damage and delays at high-tech recycling centers. (Reusable bags usually aren't eligible for recycling, but when they end up at centers by mistake, they often wrap around and jam moving equipment.) Single-use bags can also pose health hazards to wildlife and livestock -- during a recent trip to Dubai, I heard a plastic recycler lament that ranched camels frequently die from ingesting the plastic bags that are constantly catching flight in the desert wind -- and even when they do wind up at landfills, they take centuries to decompose.

If the desirable outcome is to reduce overall usage of plastic bags then banning them is absolutely the right decision.

The evidence shows that people don't value reusable bags highly enough. Which is understandable because stores only charge 10 cents for them (at least in the Bay Area). The solution isn't to repeal the ban: it's to raise the mandated price of reusable bags to something like $5. Tax undesirable behavior and it will go down.