Adler, Ben. Its like excuses for not doing your homework. Thank you all for listening, and Ill see you next week. I mean, look at all the kids roaming the streets looking for water after eating a single Saltine. And so I was interested in understanding to what degree does a patchwork of policies actually lead customers to switch where theyre shopping. I also looked at paper bags as well. Over Half of the Worlds Penguin Species Are Threatened, A New Natural Gas Project in Mozambique Gives Locals All of the Costs and None of the Benefits. Nakuru, Kenya In the open-air Wakulima Market thin plastic shopping bags have disappeared, banished by Kenya's national bag ban. In a queer vacation hot spot on Cape Cod, an ad hoc community proved that Americans can stifle large outbreaksif they want to. ETHAN: And that wraps up episode 106 of The Sweaty Penguin. Testimony on the Proposed Paper Carryout Bag Fee | CBCNY the Massachusetts State Senate passed a measure that would ban plastic bags from being dispensed by many retail businesses and require a charge of 10 cents or more for a recycled paper or reusable bag. And so because of that bands have been more popular. A Canadian Gas Field Is Polluting First Nation Communities, How Climate Change, Poverty, and Social Stigma Affect Menstrual Hygiene. ETHAN: Welcome to episode 106 of The Sweaty Penguin: Antarcticas Hottest Podcast. Not So Fast. Two weeks ago, the Massachusetts State Senate passed a measure that would ban plastic bags from being dispensed by many retail businesses and require a charge of 10 cents or more for a recycled paper or reusable bag. Whats more? bags, or maybe even stop keeping bags at the register at all. The ideal city bag policy would probably involve charging for paper and plastic single-use bags, as New York City has decided to do, while giving out reusable recycled-plastic bags to those who need them, especially to low-income communities and seniors. This really needs to be top priority. [slam the wrong buzz several times, then rewind], Okay, okay cracker? Any time someone needs bags, make a trip to the back to get them and have them wait. Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? Not good places to be adding more polluting facilities. I also got retail data from the store on what people were purchasing, in particular, what kinds of garbage bags they were purchasing. And in pretty much any case, people shift to an alternative type of grocery bag, and while plastic is unique in that it does not decompose, other types of bags have issues of their own. I mean, throw some Dijon on there and youve got lunch! So that means fewer animals getting entangled over time which is good, but unfortunately, it also means plastic bags take a lot less time to become microplastics. [bell ring] Like blueberries or trips to the bathroom, not all plastics are created equal, and single-use plastic bags are typically made from a material called high-density polyethylene. 12 Reasons for Banning Plastic Bags: Plastic Bags Are Made With Non-Renewable Energy Plastic Bags Use Up Lots Of Energy Plastic Bags End Up In The Ocean Beach Plastic Litter Is On The Rise Plastic Bags Kill Millions Of Animals Every Year Plastic Takes A Long Time To Disintegrate Plastic Is Harming The Ocean's Coral Plastic Bags Contain Toxins Will we use our cotton tote hundreds or thousands of times? Thats right, I said it. Start with your washing machine. Single-use plastics seem to be disappearing. I know youve done some comparisons on different strategies and looked at this more holistically. You can order the T-shirt plastic bags in wholesale from Bags . TAYLOR: Yeah, well, Ill circle back to the three Rs. It is the essential source of information and ideas that make sense of a world in constant transformation. Whos building these things, Triscuit? You can try, but nine times out of ten, its going to rip your original in half. That said, it doesnt have to hit these communities hard if they have access to reusable bags. A substantial shift to more durable bags would deliver environmental gains through reductions in greenhouse gases, energy and water use, resource depletion and litter, the study concluded. Paper does have its own environmental consequences in terms of how much energy it takes to generate, acknowledges Emily Norton, director of the Massachusetts Sierra Club. Then, that ethylene can be sent to a new plant where theyll add a catalyst which initiates a chemical reaction and forms our high-density polyethylene. Amid fracking boom, Pennsylvania faces toxic wastewater reckoning. The first time you say your dog ate it, its a funny story, but by the fifth time, youre definitely going to fail first grade. Bag bans cut this litter off at the source: In San Jose, Calif., a plastic bag ban led to an 89 percent reduction in the number of plastic bags winding up in the citys storm drains. Unlike reusable fabric bags, plastic bags can take lifetimes to biodegrade.Over that time, their light weight allows them to be carried long distances, causing environmental havoc along the way. In all seriousness, theres drawbacks here too. Its like when your boss bans YouTube at work, so everyone jumps to Discord. In fact, eight states have gone so far as to ban single-use plastic bags, and over 200 counties and municipalities have enacted ordinances either imposing a fee on plastic bags or. But when ethylene gas escapes the facility and is exposed to sunlight, it turns to smog, which has been associated with increased rates of asthma, lung and respiratory infections, and cardiovascular problems. So were still figuring it out right now, but weve got a great episode for you today. And sort of the bottom line, what I found with in terms of like the amount of plastic, was about a third of the plastic that was eliminated by the carry out bag ban came back in the form of garbage bags, which do tend to be a bit thicker than the carry out bags. NADJA: Its perfectly harmless, Laszlo. Plastic Bags Are a Problem. Are Plastic Bag Bans a Solution? - PBS Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? Not So Fast It may not be big enough. And the question that I had was, how does banning this plastic carry out bag affect the use of other types of plastic bags, and in particular, garbage bags, because as a consumer myself, I knew that I reused many of my carry out grocery bags as garbage bags. Some people still keep streaks, I think! Harmful to human health 6. Last month, the New York City Council passed a 5-cent-per-bag fee on single-use bags handed out by most retailers. Then, that ethylene can be sent to a new plant where theyll add a catalyst which initiates a chemical reaction and forms our high-density polyethylene. Back to those three Rs we learned when we were in elementary school, the reduce the Reuse and Recycle. So I was really interested to see what the data would say about this were people having to buy more garbage bags now that the plastic bags that they got from grocery stores were no longer available. You know, thats a bit of sort of the speculation of why these behavioral changes occurred. Our best hope the next time Earth is in the crosshairs? Thats leading to a split in the anti-bag movement. Lets start with paper: the only kind of bag that is, in the most literal tense, tearible. Plastic is a toxin that stays in the environment, marine animals ingest it, and it enters their bodies and then ours.. Never mind, that was underwhelming. And when I no longer had access to those carry out bags, it meant I didnt have this quote unquote, free source of garbage bags anymore. Quick Navigation for Reasons Why Plastic Shopping Bags Should Be Banned REASONS 1. "Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? WIRED 181k followers More information Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? debut in season five. Microplastics can be ingested by anyone from seabirds to fish to even humans through our food and water, and can cause health issues, reduce appetites, and even increase the risk of mortality. So what was this paper about and what were your findings? Climate change, they say, isnt the only form of environmental degradation to worry about. Again, Im not referring to carbon emissions, Im talking nitrous oxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, smog, Sagittariuses, really bad stuff. On The Pros and Cons of Banning Plastic Bags by John Stossel TAYLOR: Yeah, I would love to see the conversation, sort of move more. With respect to the bonuses we talked about. And so this is a really tense issue around. Last month, the New York City Council passed a 5-cent-per-bag fee on single-use bags handed out by most retailers. As far as I know, nobody has done the definitive analysis, which would necessarily need to have a large number of caveats and qualifications. Thats right, nothing like getting high on your own supply. And then if when those you know are no longer possible, can we recycle them? They increase their sales by almost 120%. Not only are there these human health concerns, but crackers and other petrochemical facilities are not located very fairly. A single mom, or someone working two jobs, is more likely to have to do her shopping in a rush on the way home from work than to go out specifically with a tote bag in hand. Once ethylene is turned into plastic, its not harmful, youre not going to get a disease just by touching a plastic bag, unless its March 2020 when every cashier in America was convinced thats how Covid spreads. Right now, one of the best ways to help Grist continue to thrive is by becoming a monthly member. They were reusing their carry out bags as garbage bags. Plastic bags could also be more sustainable from the production side. A pound of cotton requires more than 5,000 gallons of water on average, a thirst far greater than that of any vegetable and even most meats. Multi-use plastic bags are catching on slower than their cloth counterparts. Studies of bags environmental impacts over their life cycle have reached widely varying conclusions. And the most common substitute, paper bags, may be just as bad or worse, depending on the environmental problem youre most concerned about. Anything thats not zero gets, you know a pretty big impact. YouTube, Follow us on I also mistake plastic bags for food sometimes, and let me tell you, Walmart makes a delicious tall kitchen. READ MORE. ITS PAPER. Its right up there with Taylor Swifts jet, Beyond Burgers, and figuring out which soup is best for throwing at artwork. Banning plastic bags may come with unintended consequences - TechCrunch YouTube. The U.S. is the number two producer of polyethylene in the world behind China, and in the U.S., 80 percent of our primary petrochemical supply is in Texas and Louisiana. ETHAN: Obviously, this is a ridiculously nuanced issue, and while it might not be the most pressing concern of our generation, its absolutely worth discussing, especially given how popular the topic has been. LASZLO: What I want to know is why I wasnt consulted in inviting this creature into our home. For more than 250 years, mathematicians have wondered if the Euler equations might sometimes fail to describe a fluids flow. Not So Fast." These residents are trying to keep them out. ETHAN: So just to wrap up this point, would you say that its a net positive or negative? This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. How many plastic bags are replaced by one cotton tote bag? Are Plastic Bag Bans a Solution? Heres just one tiny example: Does the paper for paper bags come from a recycled paper mill on Staten Island or a virgin forest in northern Canada? Facebook, Follow us on Christmas: no, were not going to stop. The 13 Best Electric Bikes for Every Kind of Ride, The Best Barefoot Shoes for Walking or Running. Killing wildlife 5. Now, obviously, there are still benefits of reducing our consumption of plastic. The shift from one single-use bag to another single-use bag may improve one environmental outcome, but be offset by another environmental impact.. Thats right, the solution to single use plastic isnt bans, its awkwardness! ETHAN: Why does all that matter? In the last couple weeks, I believe around five of our team members got sick, so weve been struggling a little bit! Take two minutes, help out the show, and get a shoutout at the end of the show by leaving a five star rating and a review on Apple or Podcast Addict OR join our Patreon at patreon.com/thesweatypenguin. As the Australian study noted, a cotton bag has major environmental impacts of its own. LASZLO: Oh, alright, if itll shut you up. New clinical trials could more effectively reach solutions. Like blueberries or trips to the bathroom, not all plastics are created equal, and single-use plastic bags are typically made from a material called high-density polyethylene. Ironic.plastic is still better than cloth, but it just has to be more than single-use. Were finding that hybrid bands can be as you know, as successful as the taxes, just standalone taxes. Throwing This Out Here: Plastic Bags Are Amazing and You Should Appreciate Them More, Trash Is Ugly, But Recycling Is Downright Beautiful. New York State and Hawaii just passed theirs, set to go into effect in 2020, and California's bag ban, which was passed in 2014, has been shown to have reduced plastic bag usage by 85 percent . The first time you say your dog ate it, its a funny story, but by the fifth time, youre definitely going to fail first grade. TAYLOR: So an interesting thing with local policies, and theres a lot of debate about whether policies like these should be implemented at the state level or at the local level. Of those 48, 16 had publicly available air pollution data, so I took a look at that group. If someone wants a straw, they can ask and get it, no questions asked. Still, many environmentalists argue that plastic is worse than paper. All rights reserved. ETHAN: Today we are talking about bags: a word that simultaneously means a container with an open top used for carrying things, a lot of money, and any goal youve ever had in your life. Every time you need to process a new batch of polyethylene, you bring it to the facility and say, Polly want a cracker? [ding ding ding] Wow, that was a tough one. And behavioral economics really explores a lot of that. And beyond that, ethylene itself is a dangerous pollutant. For example, because paper bags take up so much more space, more trucks are needed to ship paper bags to a store than to ship plastic bags. In fact, the only place they havent been is Dave and Busters. The U.S. is the number two producer of polyethylene in the world behind China, and in the U.S., 80 percent of our primary petrochemical supply is in Texas and Louisiana. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. So I wont rehash it all today, but if you listen to our episodes on fracking or the Permian Basin or the Haynesville Shale, youll learn a little bit about the villain origin story of plastic bags, and some of the many issues to which they contribute. And cotton, unlike paper, is not currently recycled in most places. You start growing weird pimples at 10, youre crying five times a week at 15, and by 20, someone has to carry you into a therapists office, throw you on the couch, and say its broken, fix it. For plastic though, 20 years is much less time than most other single-use plastic products. TAYLOR: Yes, how much people actually reuse the various types of reusable bags has a big impact on their environmental impact. So is there anything you would suggest to policymakers as they tried to address the issue? Already in Massachusetts, 32 towns and cities have passed bag bans or fees. Doing either earns you a special shoutout at the end of the show; joining the Patreon gets you merch, bonus content, and a whole lot more. Rather than automatically using a bag, just ask the customer for. India followed the UK with a . ETHAN: When environmentalists talk about plastic bags though, its often not about the production process, but rather what happens after we throw them out. out of class essay 1 - OUT OF CLASS ESSAY Banning plastic bags is great You get merch, bonus content, and more. Some are funded by plastic industry groups, like the ironically named American Progressive Bag Alliance. First off, I had a lot of cracker jokes, but more importantly being a heat intensive process, the production of plastic bags requires a good amount of energy, and it should come as no surprise that these petrochemical facilities typically use natural gas for their electricity source. And if not, then maybe totes arent the best alternative. Made from fossil fuels 3. People look at [paper] and say its degradable, therefore its much better for the environment, but its not in terms of climate change impact, says David Tyler, a professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon who has examined the research on the environmental impact of bag use. ETHAN: I think this paper that you did goes to a larger conversation about plastic because we do often zero in on specific products, will complain about straws or about bags or about bottles. ETHAN: Its true. Special thanks to our Emperor Penguin patrons Lawrence Harris and Brownies Central. Only 2.4 percent of the worlds cropland is planted with cotton, yet it accounts for 24 percent of the global market for insecticides and 11 percent for pesticides, the World Wildlife Fund reports. The reasons for papers higher carbon footprint are complex, but can mostly be understood as stemming from the fact that paper bags are much thicker than plastic bags. 'Banning plastic bags is great for the world, Right? What's in the Bag? The Problem with Single Use Plastics ETHAN: And the list of policy approaches goes on and on. Fees have a smaller, but still significant, effect. In fact, every region of the US has a different energy mix. What she finds is actually leave the bag bonuses really dont have an effect. Plastic bag bans havent fixed the entire problem where theyve been implemented. Climate change, they say, isnt the only form of environmental degradation to worry about. Here's How. Spoiler alert: plastics parents got divorced at age eleven and it still isnt over it. [booo] Oil and natural gas are also made of carbon and hydrogen, so in addition to using them for energy, we process them into plastic. The big difference is that paper does biodegrade eventually. ETHAN: Beyond climate though, crackers cause a lot of issues for surrounding communities. ETHAN: After we drill and frack and insert other PG13 sounding term here, we have to actually turn our fossil fuels into polyethylene. Solar and wind companies are coming to rural Texas. WIRED is where tomorrow is realized. Known as one of the greenest commercial buildings in the world, since it opened its doors on Earth Day in 2013 the Bullitt Center has been setting a new standard for sustainable design. All donations matched! But advocates of these laws and journalists who cover the issue often neglect to ask what will replace plastic bags and what the environmental impact of that replacement will be. In other words, rather than emitting carbon, they would take carbon out of the atmosphere. Improperly discarded bags have polluted waterways, clogged sewers, and been found in oceans, affecting the ecosystem of marine creatures. ITS INSATIABLE! Plastic bags are made from non-renewable sources and on this account, highly contribute to climate change. A pound of cotton requires more than 5,000 gallons of water on average, a thirst far greater than that of any vegetable and even most meats. The adverse impacts of plastic bags are undeniable: When theyre not piling up in landfills, theyre blocking storm drains, littering streets, getting stuck in trees, and contaminating oceans, where fish, seabirds, and other marine animals eat them or get tangled up in them. So paper and plastic as litter paper, you know, decomposes, it breaks down, its not as harmful to the environment, if it if its litter. Bag bans seem to be all the rage, but its not the only option. In fact, we can take it a step further. Both authors of these essays specifically speak about how the use of plastic can be harmful for the mother-nature, and have introduced ways to compensate this loss. Do single-use plastic bans work? - BBC Future Thicker, reusable bags are still available for purchase for 10 cents. One of the biggest battery recycling plants in theUSis up and running. This is often called border shopping. Not easy to recycle 7. Okay, maybe Im going overboard, but honestly, if it were a small ordeal to get a single-use bag, I could see the inconvenience of that motivating people to bring their reusable bags to the store a whole lot more than a five or ten cent tax. Youre being ridiculous. Not only are there these human health concerns, but crackers and other petrochemical facilities are not located very fairly. Aw, dammit, I was so close! And beyond that, ethylene itself is a dangerous pollutant. In fact, 79 percent of microplastics sampled in the marine environment originated from polyethylene specifically. ETHAN: After we drill and frack and insert other PG13 sounding term here, we have to actually turn our fossil fuels into polyethylene. ETHAN: Plastic bag bans also can negatively affect businesses. How do we do that? [end filter] Never mind, that was underwhelming. How Are Muskoxen Faring in a Changing Climate? So if its not effective, and its expensive, its not a recommended policy tool. Thats one idea that Ive seen floated all over the internet. NADJA: Will you at least go and talk to it? Its like trying to send paper through a really old copier. Every time you need to process a new batch of polyethylene, you bring it to the facility and say, Polly want a cracker?. So paper bag usage did increase quite a bit. And now theyre using a thicker product with more packaging. All that said, paper is made from trees, meaning paper bags contribute to deforestation. But in terms of plastic, you are correct. [string music, inspired by What We Do In The Shadows]. Americans consume more than 10 billion paper bags annually, which is equivalent to 14 million trees. the more right . In fact, it may not even be the most effective option. Rather than automatically using a bag, just ask the customer for their bags, or maybe even stop keeping bags at the register at all. No, of course not. Thats like opening a Papa Johns right next to a Little Caesars. Heres Dr. Taylor discussing some of her research on that front. [wrong buzz, rewind] Cracker? Put all that together, and National Geographic estimates that a paper bag would need to be used anywhere from 3 to 43 times in order to neutralize its environmental impact as compared to plastic.
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