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Dallas Plastic Bag Ban Bad for Many Reasons
Source: H. Sterling Burnett and Pamela Villarreal, "Dallas Plastic Bag Ban Bad for Many Reasons," Dallas Morning News, June 12, 2013.
June 13, 2013
More than two dozen cities nationwide have banned plastic grocery bags or have imposed a fee for using them to encourage the use of reusable bags. Dallas City Council member Dwaine Caraway has now asked his colleagues to consider similar action, but before any vote, the council should recognize that bag bans have hidden costs, say H. Sterling Burnett and Pamela Villarreal, senior fellows with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA).
Two years ago, Los Angeles County implemented a plastic bag ban effective for only the unincorporated areas of the county.
Two years ago, Los Angeles County implemented a plastic bag ban effective for only the unincorporated areas of the county.
- A survey conducted by the NCPA indicates that consumers who lived in unincorporated areas crossed over into incorporated areas to shop where plastic bags were available. Reports from Austin, Texas, show similar results.
- Additionally, Los Angeles County's bag ban negatively affected employment at stores inside the ban area. While every store inside the ban area was forced to terminate some of its staff, not a single store outside the ban area dismissed any staff.
- Stores inside the ban area reduced their employment by more than 10 percent. Stores outside the ban area increased their employment by 2.4 percent.
- The cost to taxpayers also will rise as lawsuits are filed challenging these bans.
- Indeed, the national 2009 Keep America Beautiful study does not even include plastic bags in its top 10 sources of litter.
- A recent study found that plastic grocery bags make up less than 0.6 percent of the overall waste stream.
- Even this small amount will be reduced absent government interference, as plastic bag recycling is taking off. A number of major retailers have set up recycling boxes at the entrance of their stores to encourage recycling, and plastic bag recovery has increased by 31 percent since 2005.
- According to Environmental Protection Agency data, this growth is more than nine times the 3.4 percent increase in recovery of all municipal solid waste from 2005 to 2009. Retailers have consistently argued that recycling is the best way to meet environmental goals.
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Check out my WordPress blog: http://fighttheplasticbagban.com/
or https://www.facebook.com/fighttheplasticbagban on Facebook.
To view our newest article titled "Plastic Bag Alternatives Much More Costly to Consumers": http://fighttheplasticbagban.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/plasticbag...
On my blog I have a "Documents" menu item. If you click on that there are a number of papers that I have written that can be downloaded.
Our newest paper titled "plastic Bag Alternatives Much More Costly to Consumers" shows that costs to use paper and reusable bags are much more costly to the consumer than the cost of plastic bags supplied by the store.
Our very newest papers are "What Will A Plastic Carryout Bag Ban Cost Your Community?" and a follow-on article titled "Statewide Bag Ban Would Cost Residents More Than $1 Billion".
These and other articles providing different perspectives of a bag ban are available for reading.
Another article titled "Fact Sheet - Landfill Impacts" shows that for every ton of plastic carryout bags kept out of the landfill, more than 4 tons of plastic bags, paper bags, reusable bags, etc. are put in the landfill after the ban, all as a direct result of the ban. There are many more articles on different aspects of the plastic bag bans.
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