Latest news with #AnnaPapp
The Independent
3 hours ago
- Science
- The Independent
Study reveals important benefit of charging for plastic bags
A new study published in the journal Science indicates that local plastic bag bans and fees are effective in reducing plastic bag litter along shorelines. The research found a 25 to 47 per cent decrease in plastic bag litter during shoreline cleanups, with the most significant impact observed along lakes. The study highlights that full bans and fees are more effective than partial bans, which often include exemptions for thicker plastic bags. Experts, including Anna Papp from MIT and environmental scientist Dr. Zoie Diana, confirm that these policies reliably lead to a decrease in plastic bag litter. Plastic bag regulations are gaining global popularity, with over 100 countries implementing them and 175 countries discussing a global plastics treaty, while in the US, 11 states and over 200 counties have adopted such measures.
The Independent
14 hours ago
- Science
- The Independent
Charging for plastic shopping bags can actually lead to cleaner beaches, study shows
Plastic bag bans and fees are actually working to help decrease litter along shorelines, researchers reveal. Local laws enforcing bans or fees for plastic shopping bags are associated with a 25 to 47 percent decrease in plastic bag litter found during shoreline cleanups, according to a new study in the peer-reviewed journal Science. The researchers found a decrease in plastic bags along all bodies of water, but the evidence suggests plastic bag regulations have the largest effect along lakes. The study also shows that some plastic bag regulations are more effective than others. Full bans and fees are more effective than partial bans, likely because of exemptions for thicker plastic bags, the authors wrote. Anna Papp, one of the authors and an environmental economist and postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told The New York Times the study shows plastic bag litter reliably decreases when local lawmakers implement regulations. 'This is not a once-in-time snapshot of plastic litter, but really is something that keeps happening again and again,' Papp said. Environmental scientist Dr. Zoie Diana told the Times the study shows that this decrease in plastic bag litter 'wouldn't have happened policies are working.' Plastic bag bans and fees are growing in popularity. More than 100 countries regulate the bags, and 175 countries are in talks to create the first-ever global plastics treaty, according to the study. In the U.S., at least 11 states have banned plastic bags altogether, and more than 200 counties have implemented bans or regulations. Dr. Erin Murphy, manager of Ocean Plastics Research for the Ocean Conservancy, told CNN that plastic bags are more dangerous to marine life than other types of litter. That's because they're lightweight and can be blown into the environment more easily, Murphy noted. Plastic bags can also kill animals that eat them or become entangled in them. 'They're hard to recycle, they're single-use, and they're lightweight, and so they blow very easily in the wind,' she told CNN. 'Even if we're trying to properly manage them, it's easy for them to escape waste management systems and get into the environment.'
Los Angeles Times
17 hours ago
- Science
- Los Angeles Times
Plastic bag bans seem to work, at least when it comes to shoreline pollution
Researchers find that nationwide policies to ban plastic bags may be paying off, with fewer showing up during coastal cleanups. Ever since their invention in 1959, plastic bags have become synonymous with shopping. For many people, it's difficult to imagine a quick grocery run without the crinkle of a plastic bag, and even harder to believe that using an alternative could make a meaningful difference in reducing plastic pollution — but a new national study suggests that, in many places, it already has. A 2021 global survey found that plastic bags accounted for 14% of 12 million marine litter items gathered during beach cleanups — making them by far the most common type of trash in the study. They're lightweight, rarely recycled, and easily caught and transported by winds, making them especially likely to end up in waterways, where they can persist for decades. This combination of durability and disposability has made plastic bags one of the most stubborn contributors to environmental pollution, particularly along coastlines. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that instituting regulations on plastic bag usage — where California has long been a national leader — has had a real effect on how often such waste shows up on and near beaches. In a study published Thursday in Science, researchers Anna Papp of Columbia University and Kimberly Oremus of the University of Delaware found that local and state plastic bag policies enacted from 2016 to 2023, including bans and fees, reduced by as much as 47% the share of waste consisting of plastic bags that is collected during shoreline cleanups. (California's state-wide rules requiring a $0.10 charge of reusable bags was passed in 2014, and went into effect two years later — though industry watchers largely say while the law was well-intended, its implementation has been ineffective.) The findings offer clear evidence that legislation can be used to curb plastic pollution — a growing concern as global waste generation is projected to more than triple by the end of the century . As of 2025, more than 100 countries have enacted national or local regulations on plastic bags, and 175 nations are negotiating what could become the world's first legally binding United Nations treaty to end plastics pollution, so such data may prove essential in determining what environmental policy strategies actually work. In the study, researchers analyzed information from more than 45,000 beach cleanups conducted between January 2016 and December 2023 that is in a database maintained by the Ocean Conservancy, an environmental advocacy nonprofit. The researchers then cross-referenced the data with 182 local bag policies enacted over the same time period in ZIP Codes that had shoreline cleanups, and then applied a series of statistical methods to isolate the effects of these policies. They found that plastic-bag litter dropped significantly in areas with bag laws, even as the national share of plastic bags found during cleanups increased to 6.7% in 2023 from 4.5% in 2016. No similar decline was observed for other types of plastic litter, including plastic straws, bottles, caps and containers, suggesting that the effects were specific to the target policies and not coincidental due to general trends in plastic usages. Perhaps even more striking, the study found evidence suggesting that the structure of a given bag policy — whether it imposes a full ban, partial ban or a fee — played a crucial role in how much plastic waste it actually reduced. Full bans prohibit all single-use plastic bags at checkout, while partial bans primarily target thin, single-use plastic bags, often allowing for thicker plastic bags to remain in circulation as so-called reusables. Fees, meanwhile, charge customers a small amount for each bag they take at checkout. Although the study found that there were relative decreases in plastic litter as a result of both bans and fees, the magnitude of the decrease was larger for fee-based policies compared with full bans and especially partial bans, which were least effective. This suggests that how a policy is designed may matter as much as whether it exists at all — a key insight for lawmakers hoping to craft effective environmental legislation. California's history of efforts to curb plastic waste serve as a prime example of this finding. With the passing of Senate Bill 270 in 2014, which barred the use of single-use plastic shopping bags in many retail settings, California became the first U.S. state to enact a plastic bag ban. Although this ban initially reduced plastic bag litter, it only prohibited the use of bags thinner than 2.25 millimeters, permitting grocery stores and large retailers to charge for thicker plastic bags and ultimately leading to an unexpected jump in plastic bag waste. This is reflected by California's 2021 Disposal Facility-Based Waste Characterization study , overseen by CalRecycle, which reported that plastic bag waste rose to 231,072 tons in 2021 from 157,385 tons in 2014 — a nearly 47% increase. 'It was a nasty loophole,' said Meredith McCarthy, the senior director of community outreach and partnerships at Heal the Bay, a Santa Monica-based nonprofit that organizes coastal cleanups and advocates for plastic reduction policies. 'I think a lot of people were thinking: 'Wait, we banned it? And now we use more? How is that possible?'' Even so, McCarthy, who's spent 20 years monitoring trends in plastic pollution on Los Angeles beaches, said that even this imperfect policy has helped implement a noticeable change. 'It's almost rare now to find a plastic bag,' McCarthy said. The study also found evidence that plastic bag laws may reduce harm to marine life: in areas with bag policies, there was a 30% to 37% reduction in entangled animals relative to areas without such laws. Although the researchers caution that these findings are imprecise, in part because of the fact that we don't fully understand how wildlife interacts with plastic bags compared with other shoreline litter, the results do point to a potential environmental benefit of regulating single-use plastics. In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1053 , banning all single-use plastic bags statewide. In theory, starting Jan. 1, 2026, such bags will disappear entirely from checkout lines altogether — meaning customers in California will need to use a reusable bag, pay for a paper bag, or hand carry their purchase. California's new ban won't solve the plastic problem overnight, but this research shows that the right kind of policy — one with stricter laws and fewer loopholes — can make a measurable difference. Want proof? Just head to your nearest beach.
CBS News
18 hours ago
- General
- CBS News
Do plastic bag bans and fees work? A new study says policies curb litter
State and local policies to regulate the use of plastic bags have significantly reduced how many of them are found littered along U.S. shorelines — potentially cutting that type of waste in half in certain places, a new study published Thursday in the journal Science found. More than 600 bag policies, along with records from more than 45,000 shoreline cleanups between 2017 and 2023, were reviewed by researchers to see whether implementing bans or fees on plastic bags led to fewer discarded bags found near coastlines, rivers and lakes – and if they did, to what extent. Co-authors environmental economist Anna Papp and Kimberly Oremus, a marine science and policy professor at the University of Delaware, found that the number of plastic bags collected as shoreline litter in places with bag policies dropped by at least 25%, and up to 47% over six years than in locations that did not have regulations. "When we found the database that had information on different shoreline cleanups, we realized we could look at the composition of litter before and after a policy to see what effect it had," Oremus said in a statement. "And then we could compare that to places that never got a plastic bag policy." These results bring fresh insights to an issue that gained prominence over the last decade or so, as awareness spread about the harms of plastic pollution and its threats to marine environments. Oremus said it's the first attempt to comprehensively review the effectiveness of plastic bag policies on shoreline litter, using a database of global shoreline cleanup initiatives from the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy. A plastic bag on the banks of the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C., on March 21, 2019. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images Since 2018, more than 100 countries around the world have implemented some form of policy to either ban or limit the use of plastic bags, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Program. The U.S. doesn't have a federal bag policy, but individual towns, cities and states have policies of their own. Some states, like New York, have completely banned retailers from distributing plastic bags. Others, like Washington, passed partial bans in recent years, where thinner plastic bags deemed "single use" are prohibited, but thicker plastic bags are not. Oremus and Papp noted in the study that, although those thicker bags are usually considered "reusable" under partial bans, "there is evidence that some consumers still treat them as single-use." In multiple states without bans, local jurisdictions such as counties have taken steps to regulate plastic bag use. For example, Arlington County, Virginia, requires stores to collect a fee from customers who purchase plastic bags, at 5 cents per bag. But 17 states prevent plastic bag regulations even at the county level, with statewide "preemption" laws in place to ensure the distribution of these bags isn't regulated at all. During the study period, plastic bag litter was collected less often in shoreline cleanups that took place in areas where some form of regulation existed to curb their distribution and use, the authors said. "Our findings make clear that plastic bag policies have been broadly effective in limiting—but not eliminating—shoreline plastic bag debris in jurisdictions where it was previously prevalent," Oremus and Papp wrote in the study. They also found evidence that suggests fees on plastic bags are more effective at limiting shoreline litter than bans, especially partial bans, but understanding why would require more research.
New York Times
20 hours ago
- Science
- New York Times
Banning Plastic Bags Works to Limit Shoreline Litter, Study Finds
At tens of thousands of shoreline cleanups across the United States in recent years, volunteers logged each piece of litter they pulled from the edges of lakes, rivers and beaches into a global database. One of the most common entries? Plastic bags. But in places throughout the United States where plastic bags require a fee or have been banned, fewer bags end up at the water's edge, according to research published Thursday in Science. Lightweight and abundant, thin plastic bags often slip out of trash cans and recycling bins, travel in the wind and end up in bodies of water, where they pose serious risks to wildlife, which can become entangled or ingest them. They also break down into harmful microplastics, which have been found nearly everywhere on Earth. Using data complied by the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy, researchers analyzed results from 45,067 shoreline cleanups between 2016 to 2023, along with a sample of 182 local and state policies enacted to regulate plastic shopping bags between 2017 and 2023. They found areas that adopted plastic bag policies saw a 25 to 47 percent reduction in the share of plastic bag litter on shorelines, when compared with areas without policies. The longer a policy was in place, the greater the reduction. 'These policies are effective, especially in areas with high concentrations of plastic litter,' said Anna Papp, one of the authors and an environmental economist and postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
