Is Plastic Bag Regulation the End of the Plastic Industry?
Among the cars parked near a Flatbush supermarket, a red sedan did not carry usual groceries but 50 cases of 800 plastic bags waiting to be delivered.
“It’s a small order, Key Food just called me because they needed plastic bags immediately, but usually we use a truck to provide the stores,” the packaging supplier Roberto Vaca said.
Yet, Vaca has been worried for his company, CMS located in Ridgewood, since the New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced last month a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags. His proposal would exclude some bags including those containing meat and fruits. In an electoral year, Cuomo’s measure came up a year after the Governor blocked the 5-cent tax that New York City wanted to apply.
“These bags represent 75 to 80 percent of my business. So if the ban takes effect, this will go to nothing!” the employer of 20 workers explained. “But I will find other alternatives.”
“It’s good for the environment, but what is about the other reality, which is putting food on your table, jobs, what are we going to do?” Vaca said.
The employment is one of the main arguments used by the plastic bag industry against regulations. Even some states, such as Michigan, decided to ban the ban. Many websites flourished online promoting single-use bags as more eco-friendly than reusable bags.
“They are trying to distort the information because they want to keep this multimillion industry. But if you look at the places where it has already changed, there is no bad effect on the economy, “ explained Wei Ji Ma, an NYU Professor, member of the Scientist Action and Advocacy Network (SAAN) that measured the plastic bags’ environmental consequences.
“The plastic bag industry is not going to bankrupt. Everything is plastic!” Ma added. Carryout bags represent only 2.6 percent of the jobs in the plastic industry.
Although Vaca’s concern sounds legitimate regarding the decrease of his sales, studies do not show disastrous consequences on the economy where a regulation on plastic bags took effect.
In California, 1,864 people worked in the plastic bag factories in 2016. This number had slightly increased between 2002 and 2016. Yet, since 2007 the Golden State had seen its cities and counties legislated one after the other on carryout bags. In 2014, California finally became the first state to enact a ban against the single-use plastic bags and to charge the others, but the regulation became effective only in 2016.
The Californian proposition allotted $2 million to manufacturers to help them to turn the production into reusable bags but did not avoid plastic industry to bring lawsuits.
In the U.S., 29,511 people worked in the plastic bag manufacturing in 2016 mainly in the eastern half of the country. The jobs have been stable; they have decreased by only 1.2 percent in 14 years and have even increased since 2012.
The plastic industry often criticizes higher production costs for paper bags. Jennie Romer, an expert on plastic bag policy, estimated that producing a plastic bag would cost between one and three cents,while a paper bag would cost up to 10 cents. The economist Rebecca Taylor explained that although making paper bags generated more energy and required more water than plastic bags, recycling plastic bags would cost more money for municipalities.
But Ma insisted that the solution would not be paper bags either. “Paper bag mean cutting trees. The solution is banning the plastic bags and charging the reusable bags,” he said. “Even if a tote bag is more costly to produce, it lasts longer so it becomes not that expensive and it is definitely better for the environment.”
Ma collaborated with Papel & Caneta, a non-profit organization that gave canvas tote bags to bodegas throughout New York City. The video director Lake Buckley started this project last December with 20 volunteers and artists who designed about 100 tote bags to raise awareness among customers. Buckley considered the ban as ineffective. Instead, she would prefer a “ban-fee hybrid.”
“People actually change their behavior; it reduces waste and sends a signal to plastic companies,” Buckley said.
Chicago experienced the two solutions. In 2014, the city had a “straight” ban, but stores used thicker bags instead without changing the consumption. In 2017, Chicago finally charged all the bags. 49 percent of the customers used the single-use bags after the new law against 82 percent before. In the meantime, more than 3,500 people were still working in the Illinois plastic bag factories.
Buckley also defended the hybrid solution as a support for bodegas that have already spent $400 a month on shopping bags. “With the ban, retailers double their expenses,” she explained, “because they still give customers bags but the thicker ones. So the supermarkets spend 10 cents versus five cents.”
A fee would not make the store richer either. Though the fee money would stay with the retailers because the cities cannot collect the taxes without acting unconstitutionally, the money would only cover the carryout bags’ cost.
Despite the arguments of the plastic bag industry, this business is still healthy, unlike the oceans and landfills where millions of plastic bags end up.