UVM Study: Plastic Bag Use Dropped 91 Percent After Ban

Plastic bags Credit: Natalie Board | Dreamstime

Five years after it was implemented, Vermont’s plastic bag ban appears to be working. A University of Vermont study released last week found a 91 percent reduction in use of the environmentally unfriendly sacks.

The ban, which was passed by the legislature and went into effect on July 1, 2020, prohibits stores and restaurants from providing single-use bags at checkout. Bags used to hold loose or bulk items such as produce, candy or bakery items or for wrapping flowers are still allowed.

Now shoppers generally bring their own reusable bags or pay a 10-cent fee for a paper bag. But paper bag use went up only 6 percent after the ban, meaning that customers mostly found another way to convey their goods.

“The transition from plastic to paper was quite minimal, and what we saw was people switching from single-use options to something else,” said UVM researcher Emily Belarmino, who was a coauthor of the study. She noted that even paper bags present their own environmental issues.

The study found that Vermonters reported using 91 percent fewer plastic bags per week than they had been before the ban. Belarmino said respondents still using bags may have gotten them on cross-border shopping trips to New Hampshire or Massachusetts, both of which do not have a ban, or there could be misreporting in the survey. While businesses are doing a great job at complying with the law, according to Belarmino, it’s also possible some are unaware of the regulation or are skirting it.

Belarmino and her colleagues conducted a statewide email survey in 2022. They heard from 745 respondents, and the results had a margin of error of 3.8 percent. According to the study, 70 percent of email survey participants reported having positive feelings about the bag ban.

When proposed in 2019, the ban was well received by the legislature, too. It passed the House with 120 votes to 24 against and in the Senate by a 27-3 vote before Gov. Phil Scott signed it.

Chris Bray, a former state senator from Addison County who sponsored the bill, told Seven Days last week that he wanted to “do something that solves the problem, not just transfers the problem.”

“You would see someone leave the grocery store with 15 or 20 of them sometimes,” Bray said of plastic grocery bags.

To create the legislation, he said he worked with grocers and retailers to come up with a solution that didn’t involve simply requiring stores to switch to paper, and he looked into studies about bag fees. Bray said the Agency of Natural Resources was particularly helpful, notifying stores across the state of the ban and when it would take effect.

The Vermont Retail & Grocers Association was among the supporters when the bill was introduced.

“It sort of feels like nickel-and-diming people at the cash register,” said Mark Bouchett, the co-owner of Homeport in Burlington and board president of the Vermont Retail & Grocers Association. “But for getting single-use plastics off the street, it’s great.”

As of late last year, about a dozen states had bans on the books, while dozens of local municipalities did, too.

The UVM study recommends Vermont’s fee and ban approach to reducing plastic waste, saying it was effective and might work elsewhere.

“Such positive public perceptions may make these policies tenable elsewhere, including potentially at the national level,” the study says.

The American Chemistry Council, which represents plastic producers, opposed the ban in 2019. The organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the study results.