SB 551: Is the Plastics Bill the Future?

There was a time when “plastics” were celebrated. In Charles Webb’s 1963 novel The Graduate, Benjamin Braddock, a new alumnus of a small eastern college gets some pithy advice about his future: “One word … plastics.” That scene was nicely captured in Mike Nichols’s 1967 film adaptation.

Well, perhaps that wasn’t so much of a celebration. The novel was a mockery of modern society, and the ubiquity of industrial applications of polymers has been a target for the romantic rejection of modernity ever since.

SB 551 is the next installment of Oregon’s state-wide plastic bag ban. The chief sponsors, Senator Janeen Sollman (D-Hillsboro) and Representatives Courtney Neron (D-Wilsonville) and Tom Anderson (D-Salem) would ban plastic shopping bags entirely. So they think the thicker ones that shoppers must statutorily pay for need to be replaced by more expensive paper bags.

For some people, this is no big deal. Why pay more for paper bags, when you can carry around your own durable canvas bag along with your metal straw in the “frunk” of your electric vehicle which also contains the invoice for the new heat pump you ordered? Behaviors that provide some people a sense of transcendence sometimes make their way into legislation mandating the lifestyle on everyone.

This bill also extends Oregon’s straw policy. We don’t fully ban plastic straws in the Beaver State. You must ask for them. Somehow that has evolved in practice to a customary question from businesses to customers: do you want a straw? Instead of having to ask, you just need to say “yes.” That may be technically illegal. I don’t know, but now we’ll face the same question as plastic utensils, single-serving plastic packaging condiments, coffee creamer, jelly, and soy sauce become controlled substances. Do you want a fork sir?

Senator Sollman says this will not just be good for the environment. It will save businesses money too, she claims. Where is the evidence for that? Might the monetary value of the time spent asking for permission to supply you with soy sauce add to the labor costs of a Chinese restaurant that exceeds the marginal cost of a couple of packets of salty bean water? Such policies don’t get serious economic analysis. They are cultural in nature, not commercial.

And what evidence is there this will have a material impact on the accumulated trash on our beaches? We don’t even have much trash on our beaches, but evidence is not what drives this kind of legislation. It’s like a lottery ticket where you pay a few dollars, not to become rich, but to have a more plausible fantasy that you might become rich. In this case, we pay more for shopping bags erecting the reverie that public places will be cleaner.

If we actually cared about cleaning things up, we’d place more police boots on the butts of homeless people that squat on tells of trash in our commons and sometimes our private property. Instead, we lower the standard of living of people who mostly tend not to litter with scant evidence it will make a significant difference.

Eric Shierman lives in Salem and is the author of We were winning when I was there.