A new report from nonprofits Environment America, U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund and Frontier Group has found that bans on plastic bags around the U.S. have already reduced the number of bags used by billions.
The report, “Plastic Bag Bans Work”, found that bans in three states — New Jersey, Philadelphia and Vermont — and two cities, Portland, Oregon and Santa Barbara, California, have reduced the number of single-use plastic bags used each year by around 6 billion. According to Environment America, the number of bags saved could go around the planet 42 times.
Further, the findings suggested that plastic bag bans could cut single-use plastic bag use by around 300 bags per person each year once adopted.
According to the report, over 500 municipalities in 28 states had plastic bag legislation in effect as of 2021. Additionally, 12 states have single-use plastic bag bans: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. State-wide bans in Colorado and Rhode Island just went into effect at the start of 2024.
“The bottom line is that plastic bag bans work,” Faran Savitz, a zero-waste advocate with the PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center, said in a statement. “Millions of Pennsylvanians have realized that it’s easy to live without plastic bags and get used to bringing a bag from home or skipping a bag when they can. That means less waste and less litter. For our children to inherit a less polluted earth, that’s exactly what we need.”
You can’t use what you can’t get.
ALL unecessary !!!!
You have saved nothing.
Your reusable bags are plastic.
I thought we went from paper to plastic to save the trees. Now we are back to killing trees?
Nothing wrong with the bags ONLY how they are disposed of !!!!!!