Latest news with #KimberlyOremus
Fast Company
2 hours ago
- Science
- Fast Company
Thanks to bans and fees, there are fewer plastic bags littering beaches
It turns out eliminating the 'paper or plastic' question through plastic bag regulation is effectively reducing the number of bags found in shoreline litter across the United States. A new analysis of shoreline cleanup data finds that areas with plastic bag bans or consumer fees have fewer bags turning up in their litter. The research offers some of the strongest evidence yet that regulating plastic bag use makes a difference in reducing the amount of plastic waste in marine ecosystems. A heightened threat to marine wildlife 'We find, largely, that all the regulations do show a decrease in plastic bag litter as a share of total litter on these shores,' says Kimberly Oremus, co-author of the research paper and an assistant professor of marine science and policy at the University of Delaware. The total reduction ranged between 25% and 47%, the study found. About 20 metric tons of plastic end up in the environment each year, estimates the International Union for Conservation of Nature—that amounts to over 2.4 kilograms of plastic for each person on Earth. Plastic bags are particularly prevalent in marine ecosystems. They are very difficult to recycle and, because they are lightweight and have a large surface area for wind to catch, they blow out of the trash and into the environment at higher rates than other plastic items, says Erin Murphy, the ocean plastics science and research manager at the environmental advocacy nonprofit Ocean Conservancy, who was not involved in the research. She added that in 2024 alone, the conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup volunteers gathered up more than a million plastic bags. In addition to getting into the environment at high rates, plastic bags also pose a heightened threat to marine wildlife. Wildlife can become entangled in or smothered by these bags or can mistake them for food, like jellyfish, a favorite among many species. These interactions with plastic can lead to the deaths of endangered and common animals alike and can even contribute to broader population declines. Counting the plastic bags 'One big challenge in studying the effects and regulations of plastics is actually measuring this pollutant in the environment,' says Anna Papp, co-author of the research paper. To overcome this challenge, the study used crowd-funded data from beach cleanups. The data was collected by the Ocean Conservancy as part of their Trash Information and Data for Education and Solutions (TIDES) project. Nearly 19 million people have participated in the data collection worldwide. The study also examined plastic bag policies at various geographical scales between 2017 and 2023. The earliest plastic bag policies in the U.S. were implemented around 2007, researchers say, but an uptick in the mid-2010s more directly led to the policies analyzed in the study. While the data provides insight into how the share of plastic bags found among shoreline litter has changed due to policy measures, an important caveat remains: Plastic litter has been increasing overall. Plastic production doubled from 234 million to 460 million tons between 2000 and 2019—and without mitigation, it is only expected to rise, according to a recent report from the French-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Some regulations are better than others Still, the researchers noted that not all regulations worked equally well. Total bans and consumer fees resulted in greater decreases than partial bans, which still allow businesses to use thicker, potentially reusable plastic bags. The researchers also found that regulation was most effective in places that had a high baseline of plastic bag litter before the bans or fees went into place. The study data seems to indicate that consumer fees were the most effective option for mitigating plastic bag litter, though the paper's authors say more research is needed to confirm this finding. 'These policies are effective, but they're not a panacea for all plastic litter,' Oremus said. 'Anyone who's looking at regulations for plastic broadly needs to think beyond just the consumption side of plastic.'
Los Angeles Times
a day 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
a day 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.
Washington Post
a day ago
- Science
- Washington Post
Plastic bag fees and bans help limit coastal litter, study finds
Plastic bag fees and bans are effective in limiting debris on U.S. shorelines, a new study reports, but even places with bag policies are seeing a greater prevalence of plastic bags on beaches and riverbanks. The study, published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Science, analyzed the relationship between policies on plastic bags and the litter collected in more than 45,000 shoreline cleanups. In communities with policies in place, the prevalence of plastic bags in the trash was 25 percent to 47 percent lower than in places without regulations. But plastic bags increased as a share of litter both in communities with policies and those without, the researchers noted. The policies appeared to contain that growth but not stop or reverse it. Measures targeting plastic bags aren't eliminating the problem, just slowing its growth, said Kimberly Oremus, one of the study's authors and an associate professor at the University of Delaware's School of Marine Science and Policy. The impact of the policies has been somewhat limited, Oremus said, because they can be patchy in what they regulate and are themselves a patchwork, with rules and enforcement varying from place to place. 'Most of these bans and fees don't cover every type of plastic bag,' she said. 'There's a lot of exceptions to them. It really depends on the state.' The goal of all these policies is the same: to limit the use of plastic bags, which can take centuries to decompose and, in the interim, can entangle wildlife and release microplastics and toxic chemicals into waterways. Some places have imposed 'bag taxes' or fees on customers using plastic bags. Other places have experimented with bans — though they might prohibit thin plastic bags (which are most likely to blow away and become trash) while allowing thicker ones, or they might leave restaurant takeout bags unregulated. Erin Murphy, manager of ocean plastics research at Ocean Conservancy, said the new report was 'the first large-scale study to systematically assess how plastic bag policies reduce the amount of plastic bag pollution in our environment.' Murphy was not involved in the analysis, but the researchers used her nonprofit group's data from shoreline cleanups between 2016 and 2023. That data provided a way to measure litter before and after policies were enacted and do comparisons with measurements in places without any regulations. Lead author and environmental economist Anna Papp said one of the key findings was the difference between broad policies, which appeared to limit plastic litter, versus partial bans, which resulted in the smallest and least precise effects. There was also some evidence that bag fees could have a greater effect than bans. But the researchers said that fees are also much less common than bans and that more research is needed to assess their relative effectiveness. The study also found that state-level policies had a greater impact than town-level measures, Oremus said. Larger-scale policies tend to be more robust, she said, because 'litter can travel between borders.' The analysis also showed that the largest reductions in trash occurred in places with high amounts of plastic bag pollution. 'Are you a place that struggles with litter?' Oremus said. 'Then, this might be a policy to consider.' Erin Hass, senior director of strategic alliances with the Plastics Industry Association, noted that plastic bags represent a fairly small portion of litter that winds up along U.S. shorelines. 'Even the study itself acknowledges that the top sources of beach litter are cigarette butts, food wrappers, bottle caps and beverage bottles — not plastic bags,' Hass said. 'Why are regulators isolating a single product while overlooking far more prominent contributors?' Bans could 'create unintended consequences,' Hass said. She noted that after the implementation of a bag ban in New Jersey, for example, thin plastic bags disappeared, but overall plastic consumption appeared to increase because of a switch to heavier reusable bags, which tended to be tossed after minimal use. 'If the goal is reducing marine debris and advancing sustainability, the smarter approach is to invest in scalable recycling systems, not sweeping bans that shift the problem rather than solve it,' she said.
