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By BELÉN DUMONT - July 8, 2021
A statewide ban that took effect last week was intended to eliminate single-use plastic bags from Connecticut’s checkout counters, but in response, Walmart has begun offering thicker plastic bags.
The bags, which the retail giant bills as sustainable, reusable up to 125 times and recyclable, are not prohibited under the plastic bag ban, because of their thicker weight. The State Department of Revenue Services defines single-use checkout bags as “bags with a thickness of less than 4 mils” — the thickness of the new Walmart bags. However, environmentalists say regardless of the weight, plastic is a real threat.
“We’re calling on the retail community to follow the spirit of the law,” said Louis Rosado Burch, CT program director for the Citizens Campaign for the Environment. “The spirit and intent of the policy is to do away with single-use shopping bags and to encourage more sustainable consumer behaviors.”
Single-use plastic bags are cheap and plentiful because they are made from low-cost, nonrenewable resources but they can take 1,000 years to degrade in landfills and have a tendency to pollute the natural environment, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
In lobbying against plastic bag bans, plastic industry officials have said that thicker, reusable plastic bags take up more space in landfills than single-use bags. The American Progressive Bag Alliance, which represents the U.S. plastic bag manufacturing and recycling industry, argued in 2019 that bans on disposable bags would be counterproductive.
“You can ban this product … but the alternative is worse, both economically and environmentally,” APBA Spokesperson Matthew Seaholm said in a previous statement.
Rosado Burch said plastic bags, of any kind, can also cause serious disruption within infrastructures including recycling processes, storm drains, and other waterways—ultimately costing taxpayers’ money.
“There’s a multitude of reasons why we need to move away from this wasteful single-use habit,” he said. “And the reality is that when it’s not there, people find other solutions. People find other ways to carry groceries and consumer products.”
Although State Sen. Christine Cohen hoped to see the total elimination of single-use bags, she said plastic bags over 4 mils are not typically seen polluting waterways, trees, and trails.
“The bags that are four mils and over are often reused and less common for stores to offer due to cost constraints,” she said. “Therefore I believe we still accomplish what the ban set out to do, which was to minimize environmental impacts.”
The thicker plastic bags are new to Connecticut stores, but not new to Walmart. The company stocked its stores with the 4 mils plastic bags in other states, including Colorado and South Carolina, when they enacted their own single-use plastic bag bans.
“Some of our customers prefer a plastic reusable bag, some like paper, some do the ‘cloth’ reusable,” Walmart Spokesperson Phil Keene told The Post and Courier in April 2019. “By and large, we try to adjust the offering in the store to cover the needs and wants of all our customers, while of course being in compliance.”
Rosado Burch said companies like Walmart that are providing a workaround to such policies are delaying progress on environmental education and awareness.
“We’ve been working for many years ... to get the public away from this mentality where they need a plastic bag for every item they purchase at the store,” he said. “In reality, when you don’t offer those bags people bring their own.”
Walmart did not respond to request for comment.
“I would still encourage our residents to bring their own reusable bags whenever and wherever possible,” Cohen said.