My pet theory is that we're basically stripping the planet of all of the good, usable materials for "stuff" and plastic is a nice stop-gap to keep prices low. We don't do a good job of recognizing how inflation is tied to resource depletion.
The thinking was that people reused the thin store bags at least once (i.e. as a small trash liner for a work desk). Without those as an option, people switched to buying plastic bags, which were thicker and used much more material.
Personally, we always opt for plastic bags at the store, and they always get reused once if not many times. Paper bags just don't seem to hold up as well for some reason.
It's all gone pretty smooth except for grocery delivery services. Instead of using one time use thin plastic bags, they now have to use reusable bags. That they never reuse. So places like our company that get office foodstuffs delivered weekly, end up throwing away stacks of thick plastic bags.
Apparently though the legislature is working on a fix for this.
What's worse is that they're harder to reuse. Since they aren't resistant to water, there are fewer other uses that they are good for.
Businesses are far and away the biggest offenders when it comes to waste in general and particularly plastic waste. Getting individuals using reusable bags is fine but really doesn't address the biggest offenders.
In terms of plastic use the reusable bags are much better. It doesn’t take too many reuses before a reusable bag is a net benefit. Compared to other energy uses the plastic bags are a tiny amount so I don’t worry too much about that.
According to this Danish study a cotton bag has to be reused over 7k times.
Most of the reusable bags in grocery stores are polypropylene, and those you only have to reuse 37 times. So that is better.
When I’ve been in Europe I’ve often seen that there are no bags except for fully re-usable tote bags that you have to pay 1-2€ for. It really only takes one instance of forgetting your own bags to teach the lesson.
There is no one law, this has occurred independently in municipalities across the globe.
Now I have to buy my trash bags, which are not used twice and used in the same amount as the earlier bags. Also, I used to get much stuff unpacked, the bag was there to not throw a bunch of loose carrots, chicken legs and tomatoes in my carrying bag. Now, nearly everything comes prepackaged, which is single use obviously.
I don't see how my plastic consumption is down. I guestimate it's up.
Plastic bags actually are practically superior to the alternatives in many ways. They are stronger, smaller and more water resistant than paper. They may use less material per trip than reusable bags which take ~50x more resources but are still prone to eventual breakage.
Basically everything about one time use plastics is amazing, except the potential for environmental harm.
It's stronger and easier to handle than plastic; you just need to remember to bring one with you. My partner keeps one in her bag permanently in case she shops on a whim.
But if you can reuse for !years! Are worth the price.
Personally, i reuse a backpack from high school (20 years ago) with a mended zipper. I can carry about 20lbs in it.
However - since the bag ban has been enacted here in Chicago, the amount of plastic bag litter is noticeably less.
Worth banning something? Maybe, maybe not. But I'd take an educated guess that more plastic is reaching landfills vs. waterways due to it - even if the total amount of plastic is more overall.
I'd be interested in any evidence of the former claim.
It could still be a major solution. Novelis, an aluminum recycler in Georgia, claims $73m of aluminum are sent to landfills every year. If the southeast boosted aluminum recycling efforts it would drastically increase domestic "raw" materials. (Things like pontoon boats were aluminum limited).
Then do the same for cardboard (hello toilet paper shortage) where recycling paper products reduces energy and water inputs by 50%. Countries like Spain have cardboard thieves while in the US, it goes to the dump.
The theory (and it may be a shit one, and I have no good claims here besides it's fun to discuss) goes like this, back in the day you could get real hardwood pretty cheap. You could build brick homes. Etc. Now you can't (i.e. it's very expensive) and that is reflected in ongoing inflation of the money supply and partially why we decoupled from gold. New technologies and materials can create substitute products, of course, but for many natural resources I think we're basically stripping or have stripped the planet for the time being. Think lobster and salmon, hardwood furniture, pollution, etc.
In reality the president doesn't control the budget. They influence it through an agenda but it's ultimately up to congress. Congress passed a lot of stimulus in response to the pandemic and much of it was bi-partisan.
> When Trump took office in January 2017, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was projecting that federal budget deficits would be 2% to 3% of our gross domestic product during Trump’s term. Instead, the deficit reached nearly 4% of gross domestic product in 2018 and 4.6% in 2019.
> There were multiple culprits. Trump’s tax cuts, especially the sharp reduction in the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%, took a big bite out of federal revenue. The CBO estimated in 2018 that the tax cut would increase deficits by about $1.9 trillion over 11 years.
COVID-19 certainly didn't help, and you are correct that stimulus was largely bipartisan, but in common discussion "blame" for spending is usually assigned to the president and their administration. This can be observed by current members of Congress (Republicans) who have been quick to suggest that Biden has created a huge deficit, inflation, etc. while it's not only untrue but was largely due to actions from the previous administration or Congress before he was president. (In other words for every representative complaining about inflation they should be posting that they were the ones who actually voted for it).
If we were being truthful we wouldn't do this, but if we're going to continue to suggest that the deficit is (whatever insane things people are making up right now to blame Biden on) then it would make no sense to not instead blame any financial problems on the previous administration and keep assigning blame to the President.
W.r.t COVID-19 you can just say the Trump administration did a terrible job and mishandled allocations of money and that's why the deficit increased so much. I personally don't wholly subscribe to that but if Republicans are going to blame inflation on Biden it makes sense to turn around and blame it all on Trump/Republicans instead.
But not only did the COVID stimulus continue once the dems took control, they continued to pass multi-trillion dollar bills (Infrastructure & Inflation Reduction Act) along with a half trillion dollar student loan forgiveness. It's this aggressive spending, while inflation was already rising, that is giving them that reputation.
I'm not taking sides here nor do I want anything to do with Trump. Just laying it out how I see it.
I'm conflicted on student loan forgiveness, but I don't see it as any worse than numerous corporate subsidies and bailouts, and is likely a better use of money than what we normally spend. If this forgiveness bill proceeds forward as it is likely to do, I think coupling it with a measured withdrawal of the federal government from guaranteeing student loans and also allowing student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy would be ideal.
Or, if manufactures / retailers / etc adopted other options would consumers simply adapt? The problem here is supply side not demand side - consumers have few choices.