Now people instead buy plastic garbage bag rolls.
So even if the consumption of plastic shopping bags has decreased, the consumption of plastic garbage bags has greatly increased.
Might well be easier to recycle the garbage bags. One could hope.
> We estimate that CGB [carryout grocery bag] regulations lead to an average increase in purchased plastics of 127 pounds per store per month, ranging from 30 to 135 (37–224) pounds for 4-gallon (8-gallon) trash bags.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-022-00646-5
IMO it's better to incinerate them. That's what Switzerland does. I think it largely works, as long as you have enough routes to take dangerous chemicals (electronics and batteries mostly, heavy metals) out of the the waste pipeline.
I too use plastic bags as rubbish bags.
I can say that despite the ban on plastic shopping bags there is never any shortage of plastic bags.
Admittedly I use small plastic bags but it's virtually impossible to buy food that doesn't use plastic bags - I use them.
> Where I live (Silicon Valley), paper and plastic bags were both subject to the same treatment. In Menlo Park you can buy bags when you shop for $.25 each. The plastic bags at Safeway are much thicker (i.e., use more plastic, and are hypothetically reusable more times) than before. The paper bags are the same as before, but now you pay for them (the revenue goes to the store).
I wouldn’t be surprised if the net effect was that we are using more plastic now than before, even though we use reusable bags most of the time when we go shopping.
They are recyclable. But because of their low weight, high amounts of contamination, and constant ability to get stuck in conveyor belts... Thin plastic bags are more trouble than they are worth.
It's like Aluminum foil. Recycling plants are paid per ton of recycled material, and it takes lots and lots of aluminum foil before a ton of Aluminum is saved up.
Except plastic is way harder to recycle than Aluminum (requires higher purities).