Reusable plastic bags. (Photo: Katy Grimes for California Globe)
Enviro Grift: Gov. Newsom Signs Bill Banning All Plastic Bags at Grocery and Convenience Stores
A ‘statewide poll’ on plastic pollution in 2022, used a sampling of 379 California residents
By Katy Grimes, September 23, 2024 2:45 am
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who signed the first plastic bag ban in the country in 2007, to no avail, just signed a total plastic bag ban Sunday.
“Hi Katy!”
“Great news: Governor Newsom just signed SB 1053 into law, which means California has banned thick single-use plastic film bags from grocery and convenience store checkouts across the state!” announced Oceana.org in an email Sunday.
Oceana is “the largest international advocacy organization dedicated solely to ocean conservation.”
Except banning plastic grocery bags does not reduce disposal and recycling costs, numerous studies have shown.
The United Nations Environment Programme demonstrated that merely reusing bags repeatedly significantly lowers their environmental impact.
University of Sydney economist Rebecca Taylor discovered that people who reused their shopping bags for other purposes, like picking up dog poop or lining trash bins, still needed bags. “What I found was that sales of garbage bags actually skyrocketed after plastic grocery bags were banned,” she says. This was particularly the case for small, 4-gallon bags, which saw a 120 percent increase in sales after bans went into effect,” NPR reported.
Newsom signed Senate Bill 1053 by Senator Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) which will ban any kind of plastic bag at food stores and convenience stores. The bill is an expansion of SB 270, a 2014 bill that was approved of by voters in 2016 as Proposition 67, which banned all “one time use” plastic bags, and only allowed thicker plastic bags to be purchased in stores, the Globe reported earlier in September.
Only plastic bags are hardly “one time use.” And now those thicker bags are banned.
“We are choking our planet with plastic waste,” said Senator Blakespear at a press conference earlier this year. But really, we are not.
The Globe reported in May:
Both lawmakers claim plastic bags are still causing environmental damage, and that a total ban is the only way to stop it. Some coastal cleanup surveys also found that volunteers have collected over 300,000 plastic grocery bags in the last three decades.
Only there are no links to those supposed studies. They also still claim many people dispose of plastic bags after just one (or a few) uses. Yet most people tell you they use plastic bags multiple times, for myriad uses – especially after being forced to pay for them.
In 2009, when plastic bag bans were all the rage in cities around the country, and paper bags were considered tree killers, I reported in the Washington Examiner:
San Francisco’s ban on plastic bags has not provided the environmental results it expected. Anticipated environmental gains resulting from the ban were “nonexistent at best,” and the ban likely did more harm than good. Consumers just switched from single plastic to double paper bags; few consumers remembered reusable totes, which caused delays in checkout; and recycling bins were hard to find or nonexistent.
Notably, the ban didn’t do anything positive for the environment.
Sen. Blakespear admitted this – she said upon the introduction of her bill, “[Studies show] that the plastic bag ban that we passed in this state in 2014 did not reduce the overall use of plastic. It actually resulted in a substantial increase in plastic.”
And then she told another fib: “We are literally choking our planet with plastic waste.”
It appears that none of the plastic bag bans have done anything for the environment.
Oceana, which engaged an Ipsos “statewide poll” in 2022 “revealed that 86% of California voters support local and state policies that reduce single-use plastic, and 92% of California voters are concerned about single-use plastic products like grocery bags, beverage bottles, and takeout food containers.”
Wow. That sounds pretty definitive.
The poll on “plastic pollution,” conducted between November 5 to 9, 2021, used a sample of “roughly 379 adults age 18+ who are residents of California were interviewed online in English.”
A sampling of 379 California residents is supposed to represent 40 million Californians – and subsequent legislation.
This is the Enviro Grift.
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April 20, 2024
All I know is 15 or so thick bags go in my recycle bin each month.
It is a shame they don’t size the bags to allow easy insertion of a paper bag giving you the stack ability of items in paper with the carry strength of plastic. Using the plastic bag handles I can carry several bags of groceries at once from car to kitchen.
My question is what am I supposed to use to bag fruits and vegetables at the grocery store. Are those bags banned too? All grocery stores spray water on their produce to make it appear fresh. I frankly hate that because now you bring wet produce home. I suppose we could put the wet produce in our cloth bags which haven’t been washed in six months. What could go wrong there? I will purchase plastic bags online. Up yours, California.
Whatever, Gavie-poo. Get a box of 5,000 bags online for a penny apiece (NOT a dime like the stores charge), then straight into the trash. In truth, I’m pretty green-minded, but when it comes to giving Newsom the finger, that TRUMPS every time. Gavie-poo, ES&D!
It’s impossible to describe how SICK I am of this symbolic legislation, that — as we can only conclude again from Katy Grimes article —- has NO practical effect anyway and in fact only makes whatever Dem Marxist Blakespear & Co. happens to push WORSE than ever. Am I alone? No, of course not. And these useless politicians base their legislation on a whopping 379 people surveyed and call it a statewide poll! This is absolutely disgusting behavior for a CA legislator given that CA has an endless list of neglected problems that have turned our beautiful formerly-Golden State into a stinking, smoldering, crime-ridden, dysfunctional pit of a hell hole. But what do they care?
Then there is our own Gov Gavin Gruesome, who is in a very bad mood (to put it lightly) from being an irrelevant, washed-up politician and enjoys taking it out on the Californians he is SUPPOSED to be serving by yanking them around like a dog on a choke chain. He salivates to sign this stuff because he is a sadistic narcissistic snake of a person who has done NOTHING —– that’s right, NOTHING —- good or useful for this state. EVER.
Good job, you ridiculous politicians! Thanks for everything!
CA Dem Marxist politician motto: “Bringing you more filth in the name of environmentalism”
Everything is in plastic in the store,the bags will not make a dent in the environment . Waste of paper, brainpower etc.. California needs a new direction.
Everything is in plastic in the store,the bags will not make a dent in the environment . Waste of paper, brainpower etc.. California needs a new direction.
So does this mean anything plastic including trash bags be a solution for sanitation purposes? What happens to diapers. there’s the landfill problem in itself? Let’s put some pressure on the real problems in CA. This is in no way addressing why so many of the masses are leaving our State.. Can hardly wait why Gavin is pushing things not In a positive direction. This man does love the political arena of making a mess .
Always taking misguided advice as how to take a quick shortcut to the White House. Look up and see who his fav Aunt is folks !!
Ugh, so Gavin “Hairgel Hitler” Newsom who likes to gaslight Californians by describing it as a “freedom state” signed Democrat Senator Catherine Smith Blakespear’s idiotic Senate Bill 1053 into law.
With all the problems facing struggling Californians, how many of us clamored for this legislation? Few to none? Yet, Democrat Senator Catherine Blakespear, an obnoxious wealthy lawyer who lives like royalty in coastal Encinitas, thinks that Californians are choking our planet with plastic waste? How delusional is she? What about countries like China that dumps tons of plastic into the oceans? Wealthy Democrats like Newsom and Blakespear never have to schlep to the store to buy anything because they have everything delivered to their gated estates where their household staff deals with it?
Maybe California Globe should have included a photo of Democrat Senator Catherine Smith Blakespear smiling smugly so Californians know who to scorn?