Plastic Bag Bans Are Bad for the Environment November 14, 2011
The past several years have seen a groundswell of regulations on
plastics, particularly plastic bags and cups and food containers
made from polystyrene or Styrofoam. Supporters of these bans
mostly claim that such policies promote environmental
protection, when in reality they carry considerable
environmental tradeoffs and impose needless burdens on consumers
and economic growth, says Angela Logomasini, a senior fellow at
the Competitive Enterprise Institute. - Plastic bags generate 39
percent less greenhouse gas emissions than regular paper bags
and require only 6 percent of the water necessary to make paper
bags. - Simultaneously, they consume 71 percent less energy
during production than paper bags and produce one-fifth the
amount of solid waste. - Similarly, reusable bags are only more
environmentally friendly than plastic bags if they are used 103
times, yet on average they are used only 51 times before they
are thrown away. - A comparison of