Plastic Bag Bans are Not Risking Your Health, Plastic Bags Are

By Finnigan Digman
Asheville GreenWorks Waste Reduction Education Coordinator

As a world, we are slowing the spread of COVID-19 by enacting bipartisan, cross-disciplinary changes. We have closed our social hubs, started working from home, said goodbye to much of our daily physical intimacy, and modified the use of essential services. But we don’t need to say goodbye to everything.  

Legislatures began enacting bans on single-use plastic bags in 2014, when California passed a restriction on their use. Since 2014, more than 500 states and municipalities have enacted similar restrictions.

Why are localities banning plastic bags?

Plastic bags are a product of the petrochemical industry. They require the extraction of virgin fossil fuels, and an energy-intensive process of transporting, processing, manufacturing, and storing. The beginning of their lifecycle is destructive, and the end is no better. Plastic bags are typically used once before becoming waste. Then, theoretically, they fill up our landfills. The issue is, many plastic bags do not end up in the landfill at all. Plastic bags are one of the most littered items. They end up in our rivers and oceans, killing marine life in ways too unpleasant to enumerate here. Plastic bags pose an acute risk to ecosystems when they are improperly disposed of, but when everything goes according to plan, they still have a devastating impact.

As a globe, we are looking at unprecedented changes in our climate. Fossil fuels are literally the fabric of plastic bags, and the emissions created are devastating. Our planet deserves better, and our governments generally agree. Hence, the 500+ bag bans in effect as of January 1st, 2020.

So, why is the Plastic Industry Association pushing to eliminate plastic bag bans amid the COVID-19 pandemic?
The industry requested the Department of Health and Human Services, “help stop the rush to ban these products by environmentalists and elected officials that puts consumers and workers at risk.” The industry states: “we ask that the department speak out against bans on these products as a public safety risk,” According to the Plastic Industry Association, single-use bag bans risk the lives of consumers and workers.

Their evidence?

A 2011 study from researchers at the University of Arizona and Loma Linda University found reusable bags can contain bacteria, and that users do not wash their reusable bags very often. This study was funded by the American Chemistry Council, which represents the world’s largest plastics and chemicals manufacturers. The study simply recommends that shoppers wash their reusable bags more frequently to avoid the spread of bacteria; it never recommends users replace their bags.

The key piece of evidence cited by the Plastic Industry Association for why plastic bag bans are a risk to workers is a study funded by one of their cohort that addresses bacterial populations found on unclean bags. The study does not mention viral pathogens, and simply recommends users wash their bags more frequently. So, COVID-19, a virus with very different properties from bacteria, is not a feature of this study. Yet, the Plastics Industry Association is supporting the notion that reusable products are unsafe to workers and consumers. Is it possible the Plastic Industry Association has another reason to cultivate fear around reusable products?

Single-use plastic bags go through a similar process to any other good. They are created in factories by workers; they are shipped and handled by more workers; they are brought into grocery stores where they are handled by yet more workers and consumers. Single-use plastic bags do not eliminate the risk of exposure simply by virtue of being disposable. Our food and household items still touch the surfaces of the shelves, carts, and counters at the grocery store. Adding an additional point of contact through single-use plastic bags does not mitigate the risk. Nor does filling our own reusable bags with these products create more risk for workers or other consumers.

Many grocers have disallowed their employees from handling reusable bags. Instead, the shopper is invited to bag their own groceries. This strategy is likely more effective at preventing cross-contamination than asking grocery-store workers to bag products recently handled by their customers. This is true whether bags are single-use or reusable.
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Single-use plastics can harbor viruses and bacteria. A study by the U.S. National Institutes of Health found COVID-19 remains on plastic surfaces for up to 72 hours. That is three days. Single-use plastic bags are stored on carousels, where consumers bagging their own groceries are required to touch the top of multiple bags, just to access one. Talk about cross-contamination.

In order to stay safe during this pandemic, many of us are avoiding leaving our house unless absolutely necessary. Casual trips to the grocery store are taboo, meaning we tend to wait more than three days between each shopping trip. There is no evidence to suggest COVID-19 can last longer than three days on surfaces. So, while your reusables likely have time to “decontaminate” between trips, the single-use plastic bags that the person right in front of you just touched, do not.

The CDC recommends washing reusable bags between each use to decrease the risk of spreading any type of pathogen. Terry Scholl, of Asheville GreenWorks’ Plastic Reduction Task Force, will share various techniques for cleaning your reusable bags later this week. Clean reusable bags do not pose more risk of exposure to COVID-19 than single-use plastic bags.
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The undeniable risk lies in the ongoing, unabated extraction of fossil fuels, the energy consumed in fabricating and shipping single-use plastic bags, and the landfilled destiny of these wasteful products.
We still need a plastic bag free future.
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​Finn Digman is an avid environmentalist and outdoorsman. As the Waste Reduction Education Coordinator for Asheville GreenWorks, he is committed to disseminating waste reduction information to protect and preserve our communities.

Sources:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230760262_Assessment_of_the_Potential_for_Cross_Contamination_of_Food_Products_by_Reusable_Shopping_Bags
https://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/plastic-bag-legislation.aspx
https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2004973

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