New Jersey’s ban on plastic bags has been not only inconvenient for the public but bad for the environment.
Back in 2020, New Jersey passed a law banning single-use plastic and paper bags in all stores and food service businesses. That law went into effect in May, 2022.
Since the ban took effect, though, it looks like the state’s consumption of plastic for bags spiked to three times as much, according to a report from Freedonia Custom Research that was commissioned by the American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance.
The total number of plastic bags did go down, falling by 60% to 894 million bags, but the problem was the alternatives ended up having a much larger carbon footprint.
Most of New Jersey’s stores switched to reusable shopping bags, the kind often sold in supermarkets. These bags are made with non-woven polypropylene, which uses more than 15 times more plastic, and they…
