PD Editorial: Close California’s plastic shopping bag loophole

A decade ago, California banned single-use plastic shopping bags. The experiment in environmental stewardship failed. Shops and shoppers exploited a loophole to keep using plastic. Lawmakers should close that loophole and end the plastic bag scourge once and for all.

Ten years ago, Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park joined 100 cities and counties that had already banned plastic bags. At the time, Californians used about 14 billion plastic bags annually and recycled only a tiny fraction of them. Most of them wound up in landfills or, worse, littering roadsides, stuck in trees or polluting waterways. They choked wildlife and blocked storm drains. Some made it into the ocean and contributed to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a gyre of microplastic.

The community-by-community approach wasn’t ideal, though, so the Legislature enacted a statewide ban. It provided the sort of uniformity that businesses crave. They could follow one set of rules everywhere in the state.

Everyone was content except plastic bag manufacturers who saw a huge market disappearing before their eyes. They therefore spent big on Propositions 65 and 67 in 2016, a pair of measures that would have overturned the ban and changed where bag fees went. Voters didn’t go along, and the ban remains in place.

Observant readers might have noticed that plastic bags still litter the state. When lawmakers wrote the original legislation, they included an exception. Stores could charge a 10-cent fee for thicker, “multiuse” plastic bags. The thinking was that people would bring them back a few times to save a few cents.

Too many people didn’t. Most shoppers don’t reuse the bags; they toss them just like they did the old ones. They pay the extra few dimes and chalk it up to one more California fee. Sure, they could save some money bringing genuinely reusable bags to the store, but that requires effort. These probably are some of the same people who pay the deposit on cans and bottles but don’t recycle them because it’s not worth the hassle.

Many Californians have gotten in the habit of using real reusable bags. They keep a bunch in the car and grab them when they head into the grocery store. The state seemed to be making real progress, a brief suspension of the bag ban during the pandemic notwithstanding.

But the progress was illusory. The 10-cent bags are thicker and heavier than the old ones. That means it takes fewer of them to put the same amount of plastic into the environment or a landfill. In fact, last year, Californians threw away more plastic bags by weight than they did before the bag ban passed.

Lawmakers can close the loophole by passing companion bills Assembly Bill 2236 and Senate Bill 1053. Shoppers who can’t be bothered to bring a reusable bag to the store could still get a paper one.

The plastics industry will fight the bills, but lawmakers should ignore those lobbyists. The fact that so many communities a decade ago supported local bans, and the fact that voters endorsed the ban on the ballot, is evidence enough that Californians care about reducing plastic waste that can persist in the environment for decades.

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