Plastic bags to be banned in Santa Monica.
One of our readers tipped us to this story discussing Santa Monica’s proposed plans to ban the use of all plastic carry-out bags at stores and restaurants and to force retailers to charge a fee for all paper bags.
According to the LA Times article, Californians use approximately 19 billion plastic carry-out bags each year, 6 billion of which are used in LA. Many of these bags end up clogging storm drains or polluting the ocean. Additionally, the production and distribution of these bags requires a substantial amount of energy.
While carry-out bags are no doubt a cause of substantial pollution and energy consumption, it is our feeling that the government should always be extra careful and deliberative when regulating individual behavior (even when it is vis-à-vis a commercial entity like a grocery store). This is not to say that imposing regulations on carry-out bags should be avoided. Instead, any such regulations should be carefully crafted so as to minimize the role of government controlling specific individual behavior.
With respect to this particular issue, as seen in Ireland, a simple tax on the disfavored product can result in a shift in social norms which ultimately results in the banning of the product in practice, rather than in law. (As we learned, Irish use of plastic bags was cut 95% not from a statutory ban, but instead from a fee on plastic bags which created a societal awareness of the problem and a subsequently dramatic decrease in use.)
While the Santa Monica City Council has not yet officially passed this law, it does appear imminent. We are in favor of decreasing the one-time use of products like carry-out bags, but there are many alternative solutions which could have almost the same result without the need for such stringent behavior regulations. (Some of the most obvious alternatives include increasing the fees for usage of carry-out bags and/or making it easier and more popular to recycle these bags.)
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