Q&A: The Latest in the Battle Over Plastic Bag Bans
Paloma Beltran, Living on Earth | March 9, 2024 | Inside Climate News
From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Paloma Beltran with Judith Enck, former EPA Regional Administrator and president of Beyond Plastics.
A decade ago, California became the first U.S. state to ban single-use plastic bags, and eleven states as well as some territories followed suit. But some 18 other states have gone in the opposite direction and even blocked local cities and towns from prohibiting single use plastic bags.
Now, Florida appears ready to join them, with a proposed statewide measure to bar local cities and towns from banning single-use plastic items.
Against that trend there is now a proposal in California to update its pioneering law and eliminate loopholes that have apparently led to more plastic waste, not less.
Judith Enck, former EPA Regional Administrator and president of Beyond Plastics, spoke with Living on Earth about the battle over bag bans—and how to get them right. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
PALOMA BELTRAN: Legislators in California are trying to correct or fix legislation from 2014 that banned single-use plastic bags in the state. What was the substance of that original legislation, and in what ways did it not turn out as planned?
JUDITH ENCK: Well, the public is really tired of seeing plastic bags everywhere in our communities. You look up in trees, you see plastic bags, you see it littered at beaches and parks. And so the state of California actually went first and passed a statewide ban to prohibit supermarkets and retail stores from handing out single-use plastic bags. Because they went first, they didn’t have the benefit of knowing about mistakes in drafting the law. And unfortunately, they made a mistake, and they only banned thin film bags. And then the response from supermarkets and plastic bag makers were to then sell thicker single-use plastic bags, and kind of mislead the public and try to get people to think that these were actually reusable bags when most of them really weren’t.
So in fact, it made the status quo worse. We went from millions of thin plastic bags to millions of thick plastic bags that were typically only used once or twice. Thankfully, California lawmakers recognized that the original plastic bag ban is not working well at all, so they’ve introduced a bill to fix it and not have it just say that they’re banning thin film plastic bags, but all plastic bags, and that’s the common sense way to approach it. That’s what the state of New York and other states have done.
You mentioned New York. What are some of the states that have made progress on plastic bag pollution, and that California might look up to as a model?
I would look to New York and New Jersey as good models to reduce plastic bag pollution. The New York law bans all plastic bags at retail checkouts, full stop. You’re not supposed to be receiving any kind of plastic bag whatsoever. And in New Jersey, we have that same law.
But New Jersey went a step even further to promote reusable bags, by also banning paper bags at the checkout, which was a surprise. That initiative actually came from the supermarket companies. They opposed the original plastic bag ban.
Once they saw that New Jersey lawmakers were going to pass it into law, they were worried that many consumers might not bring reusable bags and would ask for paper bags, which are more expensive than plastic bags. In a twist, the supermarket lobby said, don’t just ban plastic bags—if you’re going to do that, ban paper bags as well. And that is the law in New Jersey. You’ve seen a very significant shift toward consumers consistently bringing their own reusable bags to the store.
