plastic bag ban leaves some customers saddled with mounds of reusable bags
When Walmart banned single-use plastic checkout bags in April, customer Larry Grant applauded the move — until he found himself drowning in reusable bags.
Each week, Grant orders Walmart groceries for pickup at a depot near his home in Toronto. Due to the plastic bag ban, the retailer now packs his items in reusable bags — new ones for each order.
How many are we talking about?
Grant estimates he has acquired about 300 over the past six months.
Nice.
But the well-intentioned war on plastic bags has had an unintended consequence: As a growing number of retailers eliminate them, some shoppers are amassing piles of reusable bags — more than they could ever reuse.
Now here comes the problems.
CBC News interviewed several Walmart grocery delivery customers who said that they’re swimming in reusable bags and that the retailer has simply replaced one environmental problem with another.
“Banning the plastic bags was a great move, but it wasn’t thought through,” Grant said. On this day, the weekly groceries for his family of four were delivered in eight reusable Walmart bags. Two of the bags each contained just one item.
But it is good PR! Using reusables.
Reusable bags are typically a better alternative — if they earn their keep. Several studies have found the bags must be used a number of times for them to have a less harmful impact on the environment than flimsy, single-use plastic bags.
Explain:
“Generally speaking, a reusable bag requires more energy and carbon to make relative to a single-use plastic bag,” said Cal Lakhan, a research scientist with the faculty of environmental and urban change at York University in Toronto.
“It tends to be durable and have significantly higher quality, but that higher quality comes at a cost.”
Costs! ! ! You mean there is a down side to reusables!
A 2020 United Nations study estimated that in order for it to have less impact on the environment than a single-use plastic bag, a cotton bag needs to be used 50 to 150 times, while a durable, non-woven polypropylene bag (such as the blue Walmart one) must be used 10 to 20 times.
But if people order food, groceries, etc. for pickup or delivery, when will they ever get to reuse them?
“It just creates more waste, which is what we’re trying to avoid in the first place,” he said. “We can’t return them, we can’t do much with them. There are better ways of doing this.”
Answer: as of right now, the don’t/can’t!
Paper Bags needs to be reused 4-8 times
Low Density polyethylene 5-10 times
Durable, non-woven polypropylene 10-20 times
Cotton 50-150 times.
And with the feds pushing for a nation wide ban on single use plastic bags without thinking of the consequences, we got this easily seen problem if they just put some thought to it. I guess such consequences for policy making is NOT high on job requirements. Hey, our policy will create a BIGGER environmental problem that what we are replacing it with. That will be someone else’s problem. Look how great we are! Praise us for making such policies.
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