Walmart Is Banning Single-Use Bags In Two More States

Plastic bags have been in use since the late '50s, but they really took off in the following decade, eventually making up 80% of all grocery bags used in stores by 1996. These bags were considered a huge convenience — stronger and sturdier than paper bags and able to hold more items. They could more easily be scrunched down and stored away or even reused as a garbage bag. However, what consumers didn't appreciate back then was the environmental impact such a small item would have. The list of damages done by plastic bags is extensive: taking years to decompose, releasing toxic gases if you burn them, blocking stormwater drains, and even killing animals that get tangled in them, per the International Bar Association. 

In 1997, researcher Charles Moore shed light on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, "the largest of several gyres in the world's oceans where immense amounts of plastic waste have accumulated." Five years later, Bangladesh was the first country in the world to ban plastic bags, reports the UN Environment Program. However, it's taken a long time for other countries to follow suit. Statista reported that as of July 2021, 77 countries had at least partially banned single-use plastic bags. 

Corporations also play a role in the diminishing use of plastic bags. While Walmart has already banned plastic bags in some states, the company announced that it will be banning single-use plastic bags in more locations starting January 18, moving towards its goal of "zero waste" by 2025, per Insider. 

In a 2020 press release explaining Walmart's move toward more sustainable retail bags, the company's director of sustainability Anna Vinogradova explained that an estimated "100 billion plastic bags are being used annually in the U.S. alone, and less than 10 percent of them are recycled." In the years since, the chain has stopped providing plastic bags at stores in Vermont, Maine, New Jersey, and Canada. More recently, Walmart has announced that plastic bags will be out of the picture in both Colorado and New York by January 18.

Obviously, customers will need to remember to bring their own bags when shopping at Walmart or be prepared to buy a reusable one from the store. However, critics of the company's new policies argue that they have simply created a new dilemma. Walmart Canada currently provides delivery customers with reusable bags, but the chain doesn't have a policy in place to collect the bags and send them out again. As a result, these are building up in people's homes; Toronto-based customer Larry Grant told CBC that he had accumulated over 300 reusable bags from the retailer in the past six months. Similar issues happened in New Jersey. Customers told CBC that though the plastic bag ban is admirable, the store has just "replaced one environmental problem with another," stating that they hope the retailer finds a solution to the issue soon.