The Plastic Bag Debate Revives
Terry H. Schwadron
Sept. 25, 2024
Plastics, the rueful promise of films like The Graduate, arrived back centerstage this week amid anxieties about, well, whether to be anxious about the environment.
And with those mixed feelings, we found ourselves necessarily bagging errant political views touching on our values about government and how we live.
As usual, California proved the leader in this renewed attack on the epidemic of plastics that strangle sea life and produce mountains of hard-to-dispose-of waste, though some other states, like New York, are making efforts as well. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom last week banned the use of plastic bags in the state’s supermarkets, and this week, the state sued ExxonMobil in a unique move, charging the oil giant with providing misleading information over decades about the degree to which plastics are recyclable.
File is all under the continuing culture clashes prompted by climate concerns. And expect that — as with every other public issue that emerges — we’ll be hearing echoes of these moves touted in our presidential race.
After all, repeatedly over time, Donald Trump has used plastics boosterism to separate himself from liberals about whether to worry about climate at all or just blaming China for bad plastic. And Kamala Harris, who has walked away from early calls to bar plastic straws to take on more substantive climate proposals, is doubling down on the new economy that should grow from green choices.
Recycling Efforts Trail Pollution
In recent years, Coca-Cola and other bottlers have taken up the plastics challenge and sought to respond, if not lead any effort to develop more biodegradable containers. The images of seals and whales caught up in giant plastic octopi that started life as six-pack holders for backyard good times has proved powerful.
Even the United Nations has gotten in on the trend, moving in 2022 to pass a historic resolution towards an internationally binding set of rules that hold all countries to a common standard to rid the earth of plastic pollution. Of course, good luck with that enforcement.
Should Trump win, any such proposed UN rules will prove more regulation to ignore or kill altogether, suggest supporters who served with him, including Mario Loyola, a Heritage Foundation research fellow and former Trump environmental adviser.
California already had banned thin plastic shopping bags at supermarkets and other stores, but shoppers could purchase bags made with a thicker plastic that purportedly made them reusable and recyclable. The new measure, approved by state legislators last month, bans all plastic shopping bags starting in 2026. Consumers who don’t bring their own bags will now simply be asked if they want a paper bag.
Between 2004 and 2021, the amount of plastic shopping bags trashed grew from eight pounds per person per year to eleven, according to the bill’s sponsor. A recent study found Earth’s oceans contain more than 170 trillion pieces of plastic that can break down into tiny pieces that can enter human blood, lungs and other organs
Seattle became the first major U.S. city to ban plastic straws in 2018. Other countries are committing to do so as well. Several jurisdictions have actively pursued rules on shopping bags, and supermarket and retailing chains have jumped in to offer tote bags of alternative materials that are stronger, more permanent and that display their brand names.
Still, all these rules are disdained by Trump, who sees climate change as a hoax and the politics of environmentalism as infringing on his right to do whatever he pleases as a person, a developer, and a politician.
The ExxonMobil Lawsuit
Still, the lawsuit filed against ExxonMobil on Monday by California Attorney General Rob Bonta alleges that the oil company deceived “the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis.” Essentially, the state says ExxonMobil vastly oversold its ability over decades to recycle all kinds of plastic.
Exxon is a major producer of the synthetic substances used to make plastics.
The San Francisco County Superior Court lawsuit does not specific damages. It is the first such attempt to hold an oil company responsible for promises about recycling abilities.
The attorney general’s office launched an investigation in 2022 to examine the fossil fuel industry’s role in creating and exacerbating the plastic pollution problem. The 147-page complaint says the company’s efforts to push plastic recycling violate state laws on water pollution, unfair competition and false advertisement. The company, the lawsuit states, promoted the widely known “chasing arrow” symbol on plastics “despite knowing that it was deceiving the public into thinking that all plastics are recyclable.”
The suit accused ExxonMobil of making misleading claims about its “advanced recycling” program, or chemical recycling, which the company has promoted as a “breakthrough in technology that will make plastics sustainable. The suit more than 90 percent of plastic waste processed by Exxon allegedly becomes fuel instead of recycled plastic.
Environmentalists also have attacked these processes, which Exxon has defended as better than incineration.
If the plastics question ever gets resolved, we might tackle the pollution of regulation lawsuits that require going to court to enforce.
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