Comment by debesyla | Hacker News Reader

Comment by debesyla | Hacker News Reader

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From my experience in Lithuania where we had a law of "plastic bags have to cost at least 1 cent" put in place few months ago:

- I see more people not using any bags at all. Previously some people would put even bananas and cabbages to bags (or some put even already packaged food items like rice or salt to extra bags "in case it rips open"). So the use overall decreased.

- shops started to offer reusable cloth bags for sale... But I don't see many people using those. I heard that some people just keep forgetting to take those to the shop.

- a lot of people just accept that 1 cent cost and move on.

- few populists political parties already "promised" to remove this tax. It's not a popular promise, but some people are attracted to that.

- overall it seems there's less bag use (my perception says it decreased by ~20%), but the difference isn't huge.

I personally don't really care about the tax because I didn't use plastic bags before anyway - I just throw everything to one cotton bag I have used for the past 10 years and it's fine to me.

You've got to charge enough for it to be a disincentive.

In the UK, I did not change my behaviour at 5p a bag but at 30p a bag I did. I keep couple of foldable bags in my laptop bag and it works great - zero downsides. It was frustrating to begin with but now, if anything it's entirely positive - less hassle relying on a shop's bags and I like the continuity of using my own - so I give such schemes a thumbs up. The resistance is about habit changes rather than actual lifestyle impact.

I live in the US and I see something similar when shopping at Aldi. They charge like 5 or 10 cents per bag, but it's enough that most people will bring their own or not use bags at all. It's a small fee, but it has a significant impact, and it's great that you can still get bags if you need them.

I'd much prefer cities and states impose a small tax like this instead of a ban. It would reduce usage without risking harmful, unintended consequences like we see in California.

> put in place few months ago

speaking from personal experience of "i forgot the bags again"... it will take more than a few months for that to change. it's been many years since the switch and it's a different habit now where I generally bring or have the reusable bags in the car.

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