This is why feel-good nonsense in 1st world countries like plastic bag taxes and banning plastic straws is infuriating.
I think the main impact is going to be cultural - people are going to start feeling weird about using disposable plastic in everything. It’s going to nudge everyone just a little bit away from plastic.
The kids growing up now, hardly ever seeing a plastic bag, will grow up to be designers in the future. Predisposed against plastic.
I’m now mildly for banning plastic bags. Where paper is not yet optimal, we will eventually iron out the kinks with engineering and science.
Furthermore, ocean pollution isn't the only kind. Look at any urban creek/bayou bank after a hard rain and look at the trash that is washed up in the grass.
The right-wing pejorative is "virtue-signalling" but is that always bad? Is it bad to set an example, a cultural marker, that we want to encourage re-use and biodegradable materials?
This is not an either-or.
Government power can be exercised without jailtime, but you seem to take everything to the logical extreme.
Here (Australia) it was implemented as a civil fine and I assumed it would be similar elsewhere. But if that were the case where you live I’d agree that’s awful.
If that’s not true then you’ve just made a straw man argument.
Hell, even if there _was_ a place where they locked someone up for providing plastic straws to customers I’d argue that the issue is that particular law. Not the broader issue of legal ‘nudges’ to foster positive cultural changes.
The fundamentalist faith that is evangelical progressivism allows nothing and no one to fall outside its purview. Every aspect of everyone's life must submit to its edicts.