Have bans and fees curbed shoreline litter?

Tim dod

Climate and Science Reporter

EPA a clear plastic bag floats under water with fish swimming in the background and a coral reef below

Ban or charging for plastic bags is helping them to prevent them from terminating on the American coastline, showing a study of the country’s litter.

Thousands of cleanup figures have shown that areas that tried to reduce the use of bags were seen falling as a percentage of total garbage as compared to the areas that did not try.

Charging for ban or bags did better work in the state rather than the city level, and had a major impact in places with a major litter problem.

Despite good news, researchers warned that, overall, more plastic bags are being found across the US – they are only growing less in places that are trying to deal with the issue.

Plastic bags in the US vary greatly by laws state, county and city, which made a useful place for researchers to test the effectiveness of bag policies.

Policies are banned and partial ban (where only thin bags are banned), ranging the bags and pre-enclosure laws, where the state prevents counties and towns from regulating plastic bags themselves.

Researchers used data from noise cleanup, which used to enter bags as a percentage of all the items collected, and saw how it vary in areas with a policy compared to those.

On average, the bag made 4.5% of the items collected in cleanup, and cigarette butts, food wrappers, plastic bottle cap and the fifth most common items found after bottles of plastic drinks.

Various models were used to analyze the data, which estimated that the relative decrease in bags in areas with policy was between 25% and 47%.

Comparing 182 policies and 45,067 cleanliness from 2016 to 2023, the authors of the study stated that this was the biggest analysis of how effective such policies are in preventing coastline garbage.

Plastic ecosystems on the edge of places like Indonesia can damage and cause a decline in catch for fishermen

Getty images are a person who holds two plastic vessels, mainly with a wooden fishing boats in the background, in a coastline in a coastline filled with plastic. — Plastic ecosystems on the edge of places like Indonesia can damage and cause a decline in catch for fishermen

Plastic bag ‘only part of the problem’

Conclusions highlight the importance of policy in reducing plastic pollution, prominent study author Anna Papp said.

The opportunity for a major policy will be the first global plastic treaty that 175 countries will continue to negotiate in August, later Dialogue collapsed in December,

“Plastic bags strong results in areas with high base line of garbage means that these policies can be particularly effective in these areas,” she said.

“It is also very important to keep in mind with the treaty, addressing just one part of the plastic bag policy problem.

“With focus on the production side, consumption and waste, it requires more comprehensive solutions to address it completely,” he said.

Research said that despite evidence policies, the coastline is working to reduce the lil percentage of plastic bags, the total percentage of the bag is still growing with policies and in places.

This is because plastic pollution keeps increasing in a holistic way, so the policies can only make such a dent in the trend.

In the UK, where the allegations on single-use plastic bags began to be adopted in 2011, a survey found in a survey 80% decline was In the number of bags washed on the beaches over a decade.