Bags Don’t Litter, People Litter

The ‘complimentary’ bag is such an ingrained part of the shopping experience that most people don’t think about alternatives besides ‘Will it be paper or plastic today?'. Though more supermarket customers are confronted with the notion that they should be responsible for their own reusable shopping bags, lacking government regulations, the majority of people opt for single-use plastic bags to transport their purchases from shop to home. Jorden and Kimberly consider how we became mindlessly addicted to a product whose use time lasts approximately 12 minutes and how long this dependence will continue.
Key Topics

• Why the close-ended option of ‘paper’ or ‘plastic’ sets us up for environmental failure

• Why retailers stick with single-use bags

• Why governments are our best bet for ridding the world of-specifically plastic-shopping bags, though the U.S. might be the last hold-out thanks to the power of lobbyists

• Why banning plastic bags won’t solve the bag dilemma and paper bags are even worse

• How to redeem ourselves for the piles of bags we’ve sent to the landfill

• Check out Kimberly's newsletter next week for her follow-up post on this episode

Recommended Resources

• History of the Plastic Shopping Bag (www.ketegroup.com/when-were-plastic-bags-invented-and-evolved/#:~:text=The%20modern%20plastic%20shopping%20bag,bags%20should%20look%20and%20function)

• The Global Ban (www.forbes.com/sites/katharinabuchholz/2024/07/04/the-countries-banning-plastic-bags-infographic/) on Plastic Bags (with a map!)

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The World Counts (www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/waste/plastic-bags-used-per-year) says they draw from reliable data sources, though the 1,000-year estimate seems a bit exaggerated