Katie Rose Quandt explains why banning plastic bags is no panacea:
Although plastic bags’ manufacture is relatively energy intensive (according to the Australian government, a car could drive 36 feet with the amount of petroleum used to make a single plastic bag), other kinds of bags use even more fossil fuel. A heavy-duty, reusable plastic bag must be used 12 times before its global warming impact is lower than continuing to use disposable bags, according to a study by the UK Environment Agency. A cotton bag takes 132 uses, and a paper bag—which will still be legal with California’s ten-cent fee—must be used four times before its global warming impact is less than using single-use bags.
What a mess. Carbon taxes are no panacea either, but this is a pretty good example of why they’re so useful. Instead of sponsoring endless studies of the carbon impact of various bags—and then trying to educate consumers about these studies—just tax carbon and forget about it. The carbon-intensive bags will rise in price and eventually, if plastic bags really are the worst option, they’ll get priced out of the market. No muss, no fuss. And if consumers decide to pay for them anyway, that’s not a big problem either. It just means they’ll have less money to spend on other carbon-intensive activities. One way or another, it will come out in the wash.
The downside, of course, is that this only accounts for carbon. If you want to ban plastic bags for other reasons, then you’ll just have to go ahead and ban them. But that’s true of everything. A carbon tax doesn’t solve every problem on the planet, but it does quickly and cleanly provide a price signal that reduces the demand for carbon-intensive products.
And it’s a pretty market-friendly mechanism, too, so conservatives ought to like it. Except for the fact that it is, unquestionably, a tax, and we all know that taxes are verboten as long as a single Republican with breath in his body remains in Congress. So we’ll get no carbon tax in the foreseeable future, even though it would be good for the planet; allow us to cut taxes in other areas; and make everyone’s lives easier. Maybe someday.
