When the Democrats took the majority in Concord, they crammed every far-left policy into the legislative hopper. One of their priorities, certainly not anyone else’s, was a ban on so-called single-use plastic bags.
Related: The Democrats Proposed Plastic Bag Ban is Bad for the Environment.
These ubiquitous items are incredibly convenient (reusable) and useful in hundreds (if not thousands) of applications. But much like CNN anchors standing in a ditch full of water to sell “flooding,” NH Democrats blame Granite Staters for loose pollution policies in China and the Third World.
It’s like a microcosmic Paris Accord. Everyone else keeps polluting while the US grabs its ankles and American families suck up the costs. We lose, they win. But nothing else changes.
So-called single-use plastics are not the plague the Left advertises. They are, in most cases, better “for the environment” than the alternatives; if that has anything to do with anything — a case we’ve made here repeatedly.
More Evidence
California’s bag ban has been in place for a while. The prohibition on thin-film plastic is estimated to have reduced that plastic waste by 40 million pounds. That’s a lot. But with what did people replace them?
The most common suggested option is to allow “customers” to buy paper or ‘reusable’ plastic bags. Market Basket has had the latter on offer around these parts for some time. But they are not better by any definition the Left uses.
“those purchased bags are thicker and less degradable than the ones banned. Additionally, paper bags stepped into the gap; the same author estimates 80 million pounds more paper used as consumers switched from the forbidden to the approved. And paper, while a renewable source, has its environmental costs. Overall, while reducing litter, it does result in net increases in greenhouse gases.”
The thicker plastic bags (bigger carbon footprint and exponentially less degradable) added 12 million pounds of waste plastic. Add that to the increase in paper, and that’s 92 million pounds of less environmentally friendly waste to replace 40 million pounds of more-friendly thin film plastic.
That’s actually 52 million more pounds of waste, all 92 million worse than the 40 million it replaced.
That solution sounds worse than the problem. And doesn’t that describe Democrat policy in a nutshell?
