Look at this Forbes headline:
Imagine that. Banning plastic bags actually caused more plastic to be consumed. Man, without leftists, I wouldn't have any comedy!
Fox News has more on this hilarity:
Plastic consumption in New Jersey spiked by nearly three times following the state's implementation of a strict ban on single-use plastic shopping bags, a study found.
"Following New Jersey's ban of single-use bags, the shift from plastic film to alternative bags resulted in a nearly 3x increase in plastic consumption for bags," Freedonia Custom Research (FCR), a business research division for MarketResearch.com, reported in a study published this month.
THREE. TIMES.
The state "implemented a ban on single-use plastic bags in 2022," with Gov. Phil Murphy at the time calling plastic bags "one of the most problematic forms of garbage."
It looked so good on paper at the time! So much virtue signaling! So much feeling that they were saving the world!
Shoppers instead turned to reusable plastic shopping bags, but those come with their own environmental consequences:
It didn't take long ... until shoppers started airing their grievances to local media that the reusable bags were stacking up in their homes due to repeatedly purchasing reusable bags at the grocery store, or due to home grocery delivery services using new reusable bags each drop-off.
I believe I speak for all of us assembled here when I say:
"Ban plastic bags to reduce plastic and end up burning through triple the amount of plastic" is something so perfectly absurd that only a greenie could accomplish it. But they did. And the lengths to which people are going to deal with these bags is more or less tragically hilarious:
"I keep them in the basement," one New Jersey mom told NJ Advance Media in 2022. "I have another bag by the door in case I go out to the farmer's market. Most of them are brand new, even have the tag on them. I use them one time but don't throw them out."
So many plastic bags you gotta store 'em in the basement!
And it's a loooong way to go to make every single one of those countless reusable bags pay off:
In order to have a positive impact on the environment and the state's plastic consumption, researchers found shoppers would have to reuse the bags a minimum of 16 times.
Get started on that reusing, New Jerseyans, it's gonna take a while!
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