The fight against climate change is increasingly riddled with lawmakers’ feel-good attempts to save the planet by imposing top-down regulations that do nothing in the way of meaningfully reducing global temperatures or cutting pollution. However, these “feel-good” regulations have a familiar habit of harming consumers by eliminating popular goods and services or making them more expensive.
The latest example of such a regulation comes courtesy of California, where lawmakers recently passed a second ban on plastic grocery bags after the first attempt ended in failure. The first ban, SB 270—which took effect in 2014—prohibited grocery stores from distributing single-use plastic bags at checkout. It was designed to reduce plastic waste and encourage consumers to use reusable bags.
However, a study published by the California consumer advocacy organization CALPIRG recently found that the ban may have inadvertently led to a 47% jump in plastic bag waste between 2014 and 2022 due to consumers’ tendency to throw away thicker reusable plastic bags after a single use. That means that rather than reduce plastic waste, SB 270 created more of it, all the while charging consumers 10 cents per reusable bag. Plastic bag bans in other states have produced similar results, such as in New Jersey where plastic consumption was found to have tripled after the ban took effect.
While California policymakers now hope to close this apparent loophole by prohibiting grocery stores from selling thicker plastic bags and requiring them to offer only recycled paper bags at checkout, it is not difficult to envision there being additional unintended consequences. Policymakers are trying to control consumers’ subjective behavior and preferences—a strategy that rarely, if ever, works.
Other noteworthy examples of environmental regulatory failures include plastic straw bans. Motivated by cliché slogans like “The Last Plastic Straw Campaign,” which rely on viral turtle videos to drum up public support, policymakers have passed bans on plastic straws in states and cities across the country. Supporters argue such bans reduce plastic waste—some of which makes its way into rivers and landfills—while encouraging consumers to use reusable or paper straws. However, the success of such bans has been questionable at best, as plastic straws make up a negligible amount of plastic waste. Moreover, supposed green alternatives like paper straws have been found to pose their own environmental challenges, such as being comprised of greater amounts of water-resistant forever chemicals that are slow to biodegrade.
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Nate Scherer is a policy analyst with the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, visit us at www.TheAmericanConsumer.Org or follow us on X @ConsumerPal.