VILLAGE OF NORTHBROOK SUSTAINABILITY COMMISSION
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VILLAGE OF NORTHBROOK
SUSTAINABILITY COMMISSION
Thursday, February 17, 2022
Terrace Room – Second Floor
Village Hall – 1225 Cedar Lane
AGENDA
5:30 P.M.
1) Call To Order
2) Review of Minutes – January 20, 2022 Meeting
3) Hear From the Audience – Items not on the agenda
4) Community Planning Report
5) Single-use Bag Ordinance Considerations
6) Updates on Other Items:
a) Communication Initiatives & Messaging
b) Solar Permit Data
c) Recycling & Waste Data – Solid Waste, Recycling, Compost, E-waste, Textiles, Plastic Bags
7) Old Business
8) New Business
9) Remarks for the Good of the Order
10) Next Scheduled Meeting – March 17, 2022
11) Adjourn.
The Village of Northbrook is subject to the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Individuals with disabilities who plan to attend this meeting and who require
certain accommodations in order to allow them to observe and/or participate in this meeting, or who have questions regarding the accessibility of this meeting or the facilities, are
requested to contact Greg Van Dahm or Debra J. Ford (847-664-4014 and 847-664-4013, respectively) promptly to allow the Village of Northbrook to make reasonable
accommodations for those persons. Hearing impaired individuals may call the TDD number, 847-564-8465, for more information.
Jeremy Reynolds, Chair of the Sustainability Commission
MEMORANDUM
VILLAGE OF NORTHBROOK
DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING SERVICES DEPARTMENT
TO: SUSTAINABILITY COMMISSION
FROM: TESSA MURRAY, SUSTAINABILITY COORDINATOR
DATE: FEBRUARY 17, 2022
SUBJECT: DISPOSABLE BAG ORDINANCE CONSIDERATIONS
In September 2021, the Board of Trustees listed item WM 1-1 as their top priority in the Waste Management
sector of the Climate Action Plan (CAP):
“Phase out single-use products by 2026 by implementing an opt-in fee for such products. This would apply to
(but not limited to) bags (both paper and plastic) … Applies to businesses of any size.”
In January 2022, Sustainability Commissioners first discussed WM 1-1. Staff provided a memo outlining details
from ordinances within our state (see Attachment G for reference). Commissioners contributed input which
can be viewed using the Dropbox link that was emailed. The questions below were used to guide
implementation considerations.
1. Paper, plastic, or both?
2. Ban or fee?
3. Remittance specifications?
4. Exemption specifications?
At the February 2022 meeting, the Sustainability Commission should be prepared to reach an agreement on
these items for staff’s direction to draft ordinance language. Staff will then bring drafted language back to the
Commission in March for their review, amendments, and/or approval for Board recommendation.
Staff will also be seeking direction at the February meeting so outreach to businesses that may be impacted
and communications for the larger community may begin. To prepare for the fee, businesses will need at least
a three-month timeframe to program cash registers and set up payment. Staff would also like to contact
businesses ASAP to gather baseline data on how many disposable bags are used in stores monthly to assess
effectiveness upon fee implementation.
1. Paper, plastic, or both? For reference, every town in our region with an ordinance includes both paper and plastic. Although production of plastic bags uses resources like petroleum, it generally results in less carbon emissions, waste, and harmful byproducts than paper (according to 2020 National Geographic article synthesizing product life cycle assessments, see attachment B). Manufacturing a paper bag takes about four times as much energy as it takes to produce a plastic bag. Commonly named reasons for this include the extractive, resource-intensive process of producing paper for bags and plastic’s lighter weight that reduces transport emissions in comparison. Many of these studies include an assumption that a plastic bag is used twice while a paper bag is single-use due to lack of durability. In Northbrook, one can recycle paper bags through WM curbside pickup and plastic bags through the Village Hall dropoff program. However, many people shopping in Northbrook are from elsewhere (a recent analysis found less than 15% of Northbrook Court shoppers are Northbrook residents), and plastic bag recycling can be challenging. Plastic bags do not biodegrade. Beyond taking up space in landfills, plastic bags become litter in natural areas or waterways, then bioaccumulate in wildlife food chains. On the other hand, paper bags may be used in compost or reused as a paper product like gift wrap when not recycled. 2. Ban or fee? An NYU study from 2020 (see attachment C) applied principles of behavioral economics to review effectiveness in curbing disposable bag usage of over 400 bag regulations in the US. They found that fees consistently yield large decreases in disposable bag use regardless of amount charged. Looking at pre-pandemic numbers, Chicago’s switch from a ban on lightweight bags to a fee in 2017 is frequently used as evidence of the success of such programs; a study from the same NYU research group reported 42% drop in disposable bag usage upon fee implementation (see attachment D). The NYU 2020 study notes that governments proposing larger-than-average fees (approaching 25 cents) often do not pass. When such 25 cent fees are able to reach implementation phase, they see greater decreases in disposable bag usage in its corresponding unit of government compared to 2, 5, 7, or 10-cent fees. If the desired ultimate goal for Commissioners is a single-use bag ban, refer to attachment F for Evanston’s ordinance language. Please note that WM 1-1 specifically states having a fee for items, and this action item received support from the Board of Trustees to pursue. Alternatively, ordinance language could express intention of this fee as an incremental step towards Climate Action Plan goal of waste reduction to 5% less solid waste handled by 2030, and a ban should be considered by the Board after several years of program implementation and assessment. 3. Remittance? The Commission may consider specifications to include in bag ordinance relating to how Village remittance shall be used. As an example, Oak Park’s program includes procuring and distributing posters and postcards with fee information for display at every applicable store and cash register. Oak Park’s staff say their business
establishments typically use funds from the fee to replenish their own reusable bag stock. Oak Park’s
fee generates an average of $10,000 revenue for Village sustainability funding each month. This
number is generally decreasing since program inception, presenting a larger number of reusable bags
being used to avoid the fee over time. Given that Northbrook has around triple the amount of retailers
in comparison to Oak Park, the Village may expect a larger monthly revenue (however, this is
dependent on the sizes of businesses in which the fee is applied).
Another consideration may include supplying establishments that do not already sell reusable bags
with sustainably-sourced ones, provided by the Village and promoting the program’s messaging. Oak
Park and other towns with ordinances in our region provide such bags in public spaces rather than to
the businesses directly. It should be noted that Northbrook has a “take a bag, leave a bag” sharing
program at Public Works and Village Hall, although this has not been hugely successful. Staff observed
lack of adequate demand for taking bags compared to the amount being dropped off. The Village Hall
collection bin was removed as it consistently overflowed.
4. Exemptions?
The Commission may consider instances in which a single-use bag fee does not apply, including retail
business type or size. The Farmers Market, restaurants, dry cleaners, or any retail below a certain
square footage may be exempted from charging a fee.
See attachment A for an excel spreadsheet listing Northbrook retailers by size. If fee applies to retail
businesses over 5,000 square feet, 46 establishments in Northbrook would be impacted. If fee applies
to retail over 10,000 square feet, 31 are impacted.
The following list includes every exemption from Oak Park, Edwardsville, and Woodstock’s ordinances:
In Oak Park, a fee may not be applied to:
• A bag provided by a pharmacist that contains a prescription drug;
• Any newspaper bag or bag intended for initial use as a dry cleaning, garbage, pet waste, or
yard waste bag;
• A bag provided at the point of sale at a seasonal event, such as a farmers market, street fair, or
yard sale, or by an occasional retailer;
• A bag that a restaurant gives a customer to take prepared or leftover food or drink from the
restaurant; or
• A bag used to package a bulk item or to contain or wrap a perishable item.
Edwardsville includes all exemptions from Oak Park, plus:
• A paper bag provided to protect a single fragile or glass-bottled item;
• Any bag used for curbside pickup or delivery for items purchased using the internet before
1/1/2022.
Woodstock includes all exemptions from Oak Park, plus:
• Any bag used to contain or wrap flowers, potted plants, or other items where dampness may
be a problem;
• Any bag used to contain unwrapped prepared foods or bakery goods;
• A non-handled bag used to protect a purchased item from damaging or contaminating other
purchased items when placed in a carryout single-use bag or reusable bag.The following attachments to this memo are provided for Commissioner’s review and consideration:
A) Table listing Northbrook retailers by size
B) National Geographic product life cycle assessment summary
C) NYU economic behavior study
D) NYU Chicago study
E) Oak Park’s full ordinance language
F) Evanston full ordinance language
G) 01/20/2022 memo to Commission with regional ordinance tableBuilding Sq Ft Lowes 165384 Nieman Marcus 130277 Dania Furniture 64110 Whole Foods 58546 Lewis Floor & Home 57009 Sunset Foods 46609 Dicks 45453 Nordtrom Rack 43386 Pinstripes 40059 DSW 38131 PF Changs 36634 Best Buy 30919 HomeGoods 27882 TJ Maxx 26408 REI 26376 PetSMart 23921 Container Store 23367 Goodwill 21810 Bloomingdales Outlet 21000 Saks Fith off 5th 20580 Arhaus 17289 Old Navy 16239 Ace Hardware 16000 Akbik 15732 Party City 15050 Ulta 14462 Hi- Five 14248 Gap 13783 Walgreens 11108 Forever 21 11071 Curaleaf 10122
Granite City Food and Brewery 9897 Buffalo Wild Wings 8497 Dollar Tree 7881 Vogue Furniture 7688 Apple 7617 Crate & Barrel 7000 Di Pescara 7000 Seven Eleven 6981 FedEx 5991 Covid Diagnostics 5858 Katz Eye Center 5519 Galt Toys Galt Baby 5288 George Garner Cyclery 5257 California Pizza Kitchen 5214 Reds Garden Center 5134 Graeters 4879 JC Licht Benjamin Moore Paint 4879 American Mattress 4782 Louis Vuitton 4627 Sarpinos 4530 Chico's 4464 Mobil 4407 Dundee Market Oriental Foods 4400 McDonalds 4335 Sephora 4319 Three Bags Full Knitting Studio 4235 Leonard's Men & Boys Wear Ltd. 4235 Philip's Shoe Clinic 4235 Culture in Montion 4232 Athleta 4200 Northshore 4087 Peyton Rose 3975 Finish Line 3966
Basu 3920 HealthSmart 3551 Culver's 3500 Tiffany & Co. 3500 Tommy Bahama 3495 Greek Feast Northbrook 3400 Moon Shot Smoke Shop 3263 Kids Science Labs 3223 Massage Envy 3223 Lululemon 3200 Soma 3124 J. Jill 3007 Verizon 2874 UBreakiFix 2874 EaTaco 2853 Relax the Back 2831 Turn the Tables 2800 La De Da 2800 The Master Touch Picture Framing 2783 Frantz Jewelers 2778 The Painted Penguin 2674 Potbelly Sandwich Shop 2657 Andreas Hogue Salon 2657 Sherwin-Williams 2614 Ferraro's 2600 Wake N Bakery Northbrook 2600 Trattoria Oliverii 2592 Trader Joes 2590 Crumbl Cookies 2570 Esther Flowers 2548 Otis & Lee Liquors 2548 Pella Windows and Doors 2526 P J Photography & Lab 2500
Next Door Bistro 2492 Monograms Today 2456 Landmark Inn 2439 MaxMara 2404 Barnaby's 2400 UPS Store 2400 Dominos 2352 Kim's Cleaners 2352 Evereve 2317 Art Post Gallery 2309 Edwards Florist 2265 Francescos Hole in Wall 2230 Quilter's Heaven 2207 Lego 2200 Perfume Gala 2174 Coach 2126 Charlie Beinlich's 2091 The Spa at Northbrook 2077 Smith Tire & Auto 2047 Batteries Plus Bulbs 2000 LensCrafters Optique 1917 Meatheads 1893 Amazing Lash Studio 1873 Butterfields 1850 Eve's Hallmark Shop 1822 Print Station 1800 Sweet Dreams Soaps 1773 Staurt Weitzman 1706 Starbucks 1673 Donna's Bridal 1579 Professional Hair Designers 1579 Exact Blade Knife Sharpening & Cutlery Store 1579 Rk Watch Service 1579
Claire's 1547 Sally Beauty 1500 Marcello's Father and Son 1500 Grill House 1500 Dental Art of Northbrook 1421 Town Studios 1421 Chicago Pizza Authority 1405 PetPeople 1394 Hip Hip Hooray Inc 1370 Chic Nails and Spa 1350 Lisa's Boutique 1350 A M Lee Jeweler 1308 Window Tech 1307 Embroid Me 1300 CVS 1294 Sport Clips Haircut 1220 Georgie V's 1200 UPS Store 1200 AT&T 1192 Elegant Repairs 1150 Kamehachi 1130 Green Lab Nails 1072 Auntie Ann's 1028 Book Bin 1000 Subway 1000 House 406 1000 Subway 1000 Maharaj Indian Grill 1000 Browns Chicken 1000 Josh's Hot Dogs 1000 Roti 1000 Jake's Pizza >1000 Simply Sushi & Co >1000
Once Upon a Grill >1000 Dairy Queen >1000 Once Upon a Deli >1000 Bin Hai >1000 Simply Thai >1000 Upper Crust Bagels >1000 Rosatis Pizza >1000 Fujiyama Asian Bistro >1000 Lou Malnatis >1000 Little Louies >1000 Baskin Robbin 371 >1000 Leonidas 777 >1000 Mobile Express >1000 North Shore Comics >1000 Dundee Pharmacy 890 Jack's Wine and Spirits 890 Neel Threadz Spa 752 Marisa's Pizza 750 Tong's Hunan Restaurant 740 Jump N Jive Dancewear 600 Silver Corner 594 Sunglass Hut 527
Article by National Geographic Society July 10, 2020 Sustainable Shopping—Which Bag Is Best? Americans go through hundreds of billions of plastic bags each year. In an effort to curb the number of bags being used once and then thrown away, cities around the world have instituted bans or taxes on plastic bags. But are paper or reusable bags much better for the environment? Science shows that there is not a clear answer. Plastic Bags A major advantage of plastic bags is that, when compared to other types of shopping bags, producing them carries the lowest environmental toll. The thin, plastic grocery store bags are most commonly made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Although production of these bags does use resources like petroleum, it results in less carbon emissions, waste, and harmful byproducts than cotton or paper bag production. Plastic bags are also relatively sturdy and reusable. Many of the studies about different bagging options that show plastic bags production demands less resources assume plastic bags are used at least twice—once coming home and once as a trash bag—and factor this into the calculations about which bags are more sustainable. Plastic bags are recyclable, though few people recycle them. Recycling plastic bags is a difficult task; they fly away in the recycling plant and get stuck in machinery. Because of this, many cities do not offer curbside recycling for plastic bags. Instead, large-scale retailers offer bag recycling services. However these services are dependent on the consumer bringing the plastic bags back to the store. Bags that are not recycled end up becoming litter, because they do not biodegrade. In addition to filling up landfills and becoming eyesores, plastic bags that become litter endanger many facets of the environment, including marine life and the food chain. This is because plastic bags, like all plastic materials, eventually break up into microscopic pieces, which scientists refer to as microplastics. Microplastics have been found nearly everywhere: in marine animals, farmland soil, and urban air. Though scientists have only just begun studying the consequences of microplastic proliferation, and we do not yet know their effect on animals, humans, and the environment, scientists are concerned about how this level of plastic pollution could change our planet. The studies that found plastic bags to be less harmful to the environment than paper and reusable bags did not take effects of litter into account and instead assumed that the plastic bags would be recycled or used as trash bags. Paper Bags Paper bags have some advantages over plastic bags when it comes to sustainability. They are easier to recycle, and, because they are biodegradable, they can be used for
purposes like composting. However, paper is very resource-heavy to produce: Manufacturing a paper bag takes about four times as much energy as it takes to produce a plastic bag, plus the chemicals and fertilizers used in producing paper bags create additional harm to the environment. Studies have shown that, for a paper bag to neutralize its environmental impact compared to plastic, it would have to be used anywhere from three to 43 times. Since paper bags are the least durable of all the bagging options, it is unlikely that a person would get enough use out of any one bag to even out the environmental impact. Still, the fact that paper is recyclable helps lessen its impact. In 2018, 68.1 percent of paper consumed in the United States was recovered for recycling, a percentage that has been rising in the last decade. However, because paper fibers become shorter and weaker each time the recycling process takes place, there is a limit to how many times paper can be recycled. Reusable Bags Reusable bags are made from many different materials, and the environmental impact of producing those materials varies widely. One study from the United Kingdom (UK) found that, regarding bag production, cotton bags have to be reused 131 times before they reduce their impact on climate change to the same extent as plastic bags. To have a comparable environmental footprint (which encompasses climate change as well as other environmental effects) to plastic bags, a cotton bag potentially has to be used thousands of times. Materials other than cotton, however, perform much better in sustainability metrics. Nonwoven polypropylene (PP) is another popular option. Made from a more durable kind of plastic, these bags need to be reused around eleven times to break even with the impact of conventional plastic. In addition to varying widely in their eco-friendliness, there is the chance that reusable bags go unused, because consumers have to remember to bring the bags with them to the store. The biggest positive of reusable bags is that their use cuts down on the amount of litter on land and in the ocean. Studies have found that bans on plastic bags in cities in the United States and Europe have decreased the amount of plastic litter in nearby waters. Things to Consider Because reusable and paper bags have a huge environmental cost upfront, and plastic bags create greater negative effects after being used, it is hard to determine which type of bag is truly the most sustainable. Regardless of whether the bag is plastic, paper, or another material, the most sustainable choice is the bag you already have. In every study and for every type of bag, it was clear that reusing the bag as many times as you can reduces its impact on the environment. Overall, making the effort to reuse any bag that comes into your possession, and disposing of the bag responsibly, is key.
Harnessing Behavioral Science to Design Disposable Bag
Regulations
Tatiana Homono Rebecca L.C. Taylor Lee-Sien Kao Doug Palmer∗
November 2020
Abstract
Regulation of single-use plastic products is at the center of much policy debate. Currently,
there are over 400 laws in the US aimed at curbing disposable shopping bag use. Some regulators
opt for command-and-control policies that ban disposable plastic bags, while others use market-
based incentives like taxes on disposable bags or rewards for reusable bag usechoices that
may greatly impact the policy's eectiveness. In this paper, we review the evidence on the
eectiveness of these policy design choices through a behavioral economics lens and highlight
best practices for policymakers considering similar legislation.
∗
Homono: Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service, New York University and NBER. Taylor: School of
Economics, University of Sydney. Kao and Palmer: ideas42.
1I. Why Regulate Disposable Bags?
Each year Americans consume 100 billion single-use plastic bags (Clapp and Swanston, 2009; Wag-
ner, 2017). When not disposed in land lls, plastic bags clog storm drains, seep into waterways,
and hang on trees, costing local governments between $3 and $8 billion per year to clean up (Tay-
lor and Villas-Boas, 2016). In addition to clean-up costs, plastic bags pose environmental costs
beyond the jurisdictional borders. (Jambeck et al., 2015) calculate that 25% of plastic waste is
mismanaged and enters the ocean. Once in waterways, plastic bags do not biodegrade but, instead,
break into smaller pieces, which sea animals can consume while mistaking them for food (Wilcox
et al., 2016). Disposable paper bags, a common substitute for single-use plastic bags, are not with-
out their own environmental costs. These bags have fewer costs associated with disposal, but are
more environmentally-costly to produce and transport than plastic bags. The UK Environmental
Agency (2011) estimates that the life-cycle environmental impacts of paper bags, in terms of carbon
footprint, are four times as large as those of lightweight plastic bags.
Economic principles provide a strong rationale for intervening in the market for disposable bags.
When markets fail to allocate goods e ciently, economists generally support government interven-
tion. Free marketswhere governments impose few regulations on individuals and businessesare
only economically e cient when there are no market failures. The case for regulation of disposable
bags is largely motivated by the presence of environmental externalities, i.e., the use of disposable
bags imposes costs on the environment which are not re ected in the price of bags. For example,
disposable plastic bags cost US retailers 3 cents each on average (Taylor and Villas-Boas, 2016),
while cities in the US spend between 3 and 8 cents per plastic bag on litter control alone (Burnett,
2013). Additionally, the way in which customers are charged for disposable bags exacerbates the
externality problem: stores usually roll the cost of bags into the overall price of groceries, as they
do with the cost of the store's air conditioning or the cashiers' salaries, rather than charging for
each bag. Thus, instead of choosing the number of bags desired based on price, customers perceive
the receipt of disposable bags to be free, which leads customers to use more bags than they would if
paying for each bag individually (Shampanier, Mazar and Ariely, 2007). This may be exacerbated
if cashiers prioritize time e ciency over minimizing bag use.
Standard economic principles suggest successful disposable bag policies should address these
2Table 1: Types of Disposable Bag Policies
Market-Based Incentives Command-and-Control
Disposable Bag Taxes Reusable Bag Bonus Stand-alone Bans Hybrid Bans
+
Small tax/fee per disposable Small bonus given to Prohibits use of plastic Prohibits use of plastic
carryout bag used by customers by retailers for carryout bags under a certain carryout bags under a certain
customers; issued at point of using reusable bags at thickness (generally 2.25 thickness and requires all
sale checkout mils thick) at checkout remaining carryout bags are
sold at a minimum price
Examples:
• Denmark (1994) • Kroger • Bangladesh (2002) • Seattle, WA (2012)
• Ireland (2002) • Safeway • San Francisco, CA (2007; • California (2016)
• South Africa (2004) • Giant replaced with hybrid ban • Boston, MA (2017)
• Washington, DC (2010) • Target in 2012) • Minneapolis, MN (2017)
• Boulder, CO (2013) • Whole Foods • Chicago, IL (2015; • Oregon (2020)
• Israel (2017) • Trader Joe’s replaced with tax in 2017) • Vermont (2020)
• Spain (2018) • Ralphs • Kenya (2017)
• Peru (2019) • New York (2020; hybrid
ban opt-in)
market failures. And moreover, successful policies need to consider how customers respond to policy
interventions and what behavioral biases, or tendencies, customers have (Jia, Evans and van der
Linden, 2019). This is where behavioral economics plays an important role. Behavioral economics
studies the eects of psychological, emotional, and social factors on economic decision-making. This
paper brings together principles from standard economics and behavioral science to assess recent
regulations of the use of disposable bags.
II. Policy Background
Governments around the world have implemented a variety of policies to regulate the use of dispos-
able bags to address their costs to the environment and to government budgets. While these policies
share the common goal of reducing waste, in practice they can be divided into two approaches: (1)
market-based approaches that nancially incentivize consumers to change their behavior; and (2)
command-and-control approaches that regulate consumer behavior directly. Table 1 summarizes
the most commonly used disposable bag policies.
3A. Market-Based Incentives
Market-based incentives to discourage disposable bag use typically take the form of a small fee
or tax, charged per disposable bag used by customers at checkout. One of the more well-known
examples is the Irish Plastax, a ¿0.15 tax on all plastic shopping bags (Convery, McDonnell and
Ferreira, 2007). In 2010, Washington, D.C. became the rst city in the US to adopt a similar policy
which placed a ve-cent tax on all disposable bags provided by grocery retailers (Homono, 2018).
In addition to government regulations, many retailers have proactively adopted their own policies
to curb the use of disposable shopping bags. One common policy oers customers a reusable bag
creditusually between 3 and 5 centsfor each reusable bag the customer uses instead of taking a
disposable bag.
1
B. Command-and-Control Policies
Alternative to market-based approaches, command-and-control policies set standards for allowable
products or actions, banning all those that do not meet the standards. In our setting, these poli-
cies typically take the form of a ban on lightweight plastic shopping bags. In 2002, Bangladesh
became the rst country to ban the use of plastic bags. Five years later, San Francisco became
the rst jurisdiction in the US to pass a similar law which prohibited the provision of plastic bags
less than 2.25 mils thick, roughly the thickness of a commercial garbage bag. Currently, bans on
plastic bags are the most common disposable bag regulation worldwide (Nielsen, Holmberg and
Stripple, 2019) and over 90 percent of state and local ordinances in the US that regulate disposable
bag provision incorporate a ban on plastic bags (Homono et al., 2020). These policies take two
forms. Stand-alone bans restrict the use of traditional plastic shopping bags, often using a similar
thickness cuto as in San Francisco's policy, but leave other types of disposable bagssuch as paper
bagsunregulated. Hybrid bans pair bans on lightweight plastic bags with a minimum required
fee for paper and reusable bags (usually between ve and 10 cents).
1
These policies have been implemented by some of the largest grocery chains in the US, including Kroger, Safeway,
Giant, Target, and Whole Foods.
4III. Policy Lessons and Insights from Behavioral Science
This section provides policy design recommendations, founded in both standard and behavioral
economics, for governments and policymakers interested in implementing disposable bag regulations.
To inform these recommendations, we begin with a review of recent evidence on the eectiveness of
various disposable bag regulations. We focus on evaluations employing a dierence-in-dierences
methodology, i.e., those that compare bag use before and after a policy change, and among customers
shopping in areas aected by the regulation (treatment areas) and those shopping in unregulated
areas (control areas).
2
Lesson 1: Disposable Bag Taxes Work Better than Reusable Bag Bonuses (i.e., Sticks
over Carrots)
Market-based incentives can take the form of subsidies for environmentally-friendly behavior (i.e.,
carrots) or nancial penalties for environmentally-costly behavior (i.e., sticks). In the context of
disposable bag regulations, policymakers may consider a bonus for reusable bag use or a tax on
disposable bag use. Standard economic models suggest that the choice between these two policy
designstaxes versus bonusesshould not matter as long as the incentives are the same amount.
However, if customers are loss-averse (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979), meaning that they experience
losses more strongly than similar-sized gains, a tax may be more eective than a bonus of the same
magnitude. Empirical evidence of loss aversion in the eld has been documented in several contexts
including among stock market investors (Benartzi and Thaler, 1995), taxi cab drivers (Camerer
et al., 1997), and professional golfers (Pope and Schweitzer, 2011). In this section we rst review
evaluations of policies that levy small taxes on disposable bag use and then compare those ndings
to estimates of the eect of similar sized bonuses for reusable bag use.
In one of the rst evaluations of disposable bag taxes in the US, Homono (2018) estimates the
eect of the implementation of a ve-cent tax on disposable bags in Montgomery County, Maryland.
This study uses observational data on disposable and reusable bag use in the months just before
2
A large body of empirical research evaluates these regulations using a simple dierence approach, i.e., comparing
consumer behavior before and after a policy change. Rivers, Shenstone-Harris and Young (2017) provides a review of
these studies, but highlights that this approach may lead to biased estimates since it does not account for confounding
events that may occur simultaneously with the policy change. To our knowledge, there have been no randomized
control trials conducted in this policy area, and so the dierence-in-dierences research design provides the most
credible causal identi cation strategy used to evaluate disposable bag regulations.
5and just after the tax was implemented at stores in Maryland (which experienced a policy change),
Washington, D.C. (which had a ve-cent tax throughout the study period), and in Virginia (which
had proposed a tax, but never passed one). The study nds that prior to the tax, just over 80
percent of customers used a disposable bag and that the tax decreased the proportion of customers
using a disposable bag by 42 percentage points.
3 Homono et al. (2020) also estimate a large eect
of the implementation of a 7-cent tax in Chicagoa decrease in disposable bag use of 33 percentage
points.
Similar evaluations of disposable bag charges have been conducted in several other countries as
well. Using observational customer data, Jakovcevic et al. (2014) nds that the implementation of a
2.5 to 4 cent tax on disposable bags in the city of Buenos Aires led to increases in the proportion of
customers using a reusable bag relative to behavior in Greater Buenos Aires (which was not subject
to the tax) that are similar in magnitude to those estimated in the US studies. Cabrera, Caera and
Cid (2020) use administrative data on disposable bag use from retailers and the staggered roll-out of
a 7-10 cent tax in Uruguay and nd a roughly 80 percent decrease in the number of bags provided.
Rivers, Shenstone-Harris and Young (2017) and Poortinga et al. (2016) evaluate the eect of a
5-cent bag levy in Toronto and a 5p carrier bag charge in Wales, respectively, using survey data on
reusable bag use. Both studies nd statistically signi cant increases in reusable bag use; however,
the magnitude of these estimates are considerably smaller than those estimated in the US and Latin
American evaluations.
4
One interpretation of the large change in consumer behavior after the implementation of rel-
atively small taxes, as described above, is that there are many customers just on the margin of
bringing a reusable bag instead of taking a disposable bag. In other words, the cost a customer
associates with bringing a reusable bag is no more than ve cents per bagotherwise the customers
would continue to take disposable bags at the same rate that they always had. If this is the case,
a similar-sized bonus for reusable bag use should be equally eective. If, instead, the behavioral
change is driven by loss-averse customers who are reacting to the pain of paying the tax, but do not
otherwise care about seeing their wealth change by a nickel, the bonus may not be as eective.
3
Taylor (2020) nds similar results using scanner data from a large supermarket chain in the D.C. metropolitan
area, with only 35 percent of D.C. customers paying the bag tax a year after the policy was enacted.
4
These dierences may be due to the higher baseline levels of reusable bag use observed in Toronto and Wales,
dierences in data (observational data versus self-reported surveys), or other regional dierences in response to the
policy.
6In addition to estimating the eect of the ve-cent tax, Homono (2018) compares disposable
bag use at retailers in the D.C. area that oered a ve-cent reusable bag bonus to those that did not
and found no dierences in disposable bag use. These ndings are supported by anecdotal evidence
from retailers that the reusable bag credits showed little eect on reusable bag use, resulting in
many retailers rolling back these incentives Sewell (2011). This asymmetry in customer responses
to the two types of policiesa large change in behavior with a ve-cent tax, but no change in
behavior in response to a ve-cent bonusis consistent with a model of loss aversion and suggests
that policymakers considering market-based incentives to discourage disposable bag use should use
sticks rather than carrots.
Lesson 2: A Bag Tax Does Not Have to Be Large to Be Eective
Proponents of disposable bag taxes have hotly debated the ideal size of the tax. Early failed
disposable bag legislation in California suggested a 2-cent fee on all plastic bags as part of the
Litter and Marine Debris Reduction and Recycling Act of 2003 (Romer, 2010). Two years later,
San Francisco proposed a 17-cent fee on both plastic and paper bags but the proposal was met with
public opposition causing policymakers to consider lower fee rates (Herel, 2005). In 2008, Seattle
became the rst city in the US to pass a disposable bag feea 20-cent fee on both plastic and paper
bagsbut before the fee was implemented, the policy was placed on a citywide ballot and voted
down. Three years later, however, the city successfully implemented a policy that banned plastic
bags and charged a 5-cent fee for paper bags. This suggests that policymakers face a trade-o when
choosing the size of the fee: higher fees may generate larger reductions in waste, but are less likely
to receive enough political support to be implemented at all.
To date, there remains limited evidence on the eect of this dimension of the policy's designthe
magnitude of the feeprimarily because the majority of disposable bag fees in the US are between
ve and 10 cents, though a few jurisdictions levy fees as high as 25 cents per bag. Nevertheless,
the evidence described above suggests that even very small taxes on disposable bags lead to large
changes in behavior across a wide range of countries. While these ndings do not rule out standard
models of economic decision-making, especially if the cost of avoiding a disposable bag is very small,
Shampanier, Mazar and Ariely (2007) suggests that individuals do not apply standard cost-bene t
rules when making purchasing choices over two goods when one of the goods is free. They suggest
7that receiving a good for free not only decreases its cost, but also increases its bene ts, i.e., people
really like getting things for free. This implies that a very small feeeven one or two cents per
bagmay lead to large decreases in disposable bag use since the bags are no longer free.
There are several other behavioral mechanisms that may contribute to the disposable bag tax's
eectiveness in spite of its small size: (1) salience, (2) habit formation, and (3) social norms.
Salience. A growing literature on tax salience demonstrates that if a tax is out of sighteither
because of the placement of the tax, payment method, or the complexity of the taxthen it is also
out of mind when individuals make economic decisions. For example, Chetty, Looney and Kroft
(2009) show that including sales taxes (which are usually added on at the register) in the posted
price of a good decrease sales of that good. Similarly, Finkelstein (2009) shows that reducing the
salience of road tolls through the introduction of EZ-Pass reduced the responsiveness of drivers to
changes in the toll. Conversely, there are several examples in the eld of environmental economics
that suggest that taxes are more salient than traditional price changes. For example, Li, Linn
and Muehlegger (2014) show that customers responded more to an increase in a gasoline tax than
a similarly sized increase in gas prices driven by oil price changes, citing that media coverage of
the tax made it more salient. Similarly, Rivers and Schaufele (2015) nd that the introduction of
a carbon tax in Canada led to a signi cantly larger change in the demand for gasoline than an
equivalent price change using variation in policies across provinces. Consistent with these ndings,
Homono (2018) nds near-perfect awareness of the D.C. area disposable bag taxes, suggesting that
salience may have contributed to the policy's eectiveness.
Habit Formation. One reason customers may use disposable bags is because they are simply
in the habit of doing so, especially when being provided a bag is the default. In other words, the
decision to use a disposable bag may not be a deliberate choice for consumers; they are likely not
actively weighing the costs and bene ts of each bag for each purchase, but rather acting on autopilot
and making decisions based on the choices they made in the past. When a disposable bag tax is
introduced, it cues customers to make an active choice of whether to pay for a disposable bag (Neal,
Wood and Quinn, 2006). This choice, when repeated over time, can then serve as the foundation
for a new habit. Taylor (2020) nds evidence of habit formation after the implementation of taxes
and hybrid banswith the share of customers paying for disposable bags uctuating only in the
rst two weeks of the policies and then remaining constant for the next 1 to 2 years of the sample
8period.
Social Norms. Behavioral science research has shown that social comparison can be a powerful
policy tool, especially in the area of environmental conservation (Goldstein, Cialdini and Griskevi-
cius, 2008; Allcott, 2011). Since reusable bag use is a highly visible behavior, even a small initial
impact of the tax can generate large eects through a social multiplier (Benabou and Tirole, 2011).
Separately, these policies may be particularly eective when they are government regulations rather
than, say, store policies, due to the expressive function of law, a legal theory that suggests that
passing a law signals a change in social norms by stating which behaviors warrant punishment
(Cooter, 1998).
It is worth pointing out that the change in consumer behavior in response to disposable bag
taxes is much larger than responses to similar-sized taxes on other products like soda (Falbe et al.,
2016; Taylor, 2019). This may suggest that demand for disposable bags is simply more elastic,
however, elements of the decision-making environment described above that are unique to the case
of disposable bagsthe salience of the tax, habit formation, and the fact that disposable bags were
originally considered freemay contribute to the eectiveness of disposable bag taxes. While
more research is necessary to determine the relative contribution of each of these components of
the choice environment, each of these factors likely had a hand in the overwhelming eectiveness of
disposable bag taxes across a wide variety of countries.
Lesson 3: Plastic Bag Bans Can Lead to Unintended Consequences (i.e., Avoid the
Cobra Eect)
The policies described above all aim to reduce the environmental costs associated with single-use
shopping bags. However, certain policy designs may lead to unintended consequences, i.e., outcomes
that are not anticipated and may run counter to the policy's stated goal. This latter outcome, when
the policy solution exacerbates the problem, is often referred to as the Cobra Eect, a term
derived from a cautionary tale in which a policy aimed at reducing the number of cobras by oering
a reward for each captured snake led to an increase in cobra breeders (Heath, 2020). In the context
of disposable bag regulation, how plastic bags are regulated will aect the use of substitutes for
plastic bags, which, depending on the environmental cost of the substitute, could undermine the
intended consequences of the policy.
9In the case of stand-alone bans, the most common command-and-control policy, research suggests
that the cure may be worse than the disease. Homono et al. (2020) evaluates the eect of a stand-
alone plastic bag ban implemented in the city of Chicago in 2015 and then repealed in 2017. Like San
Francisco's policy, the ban applied to plastic bags less than 2.25 mils thick. In response to the ban,
and counter to the policy's goal, retailers circumvented the regulation by oering customers free thick
plastic bags roughly ve times the thickness of the standard plastic grocery bags that were on oer
prior to the ban.
5 During the ban, over 40 percent of Chicago customers used a newly-provided thick
plastic bag. Using observational data on customer-level disposable bag use for customers shopping
in Chicago (which was covered by the ban) and in the surrounding suburbs (which did not impose
any disposable bag regulations), this study nds the ban's repeal did not change the proportion
of customers using a disposable bag, however, with the repeal, stores reversed the use of thicker
plastic bags. These ndings suggest that the ban increased the environmental costs associated with
disposable bag use by shifting customers towards more environmentally-harmful disposable bags
without reducing the overall number of customers using disposable bags.
Hybrid bans present an alternative policy design that restricts the use of plastic bags while
leaving fewer disposable substitutes unregulated. Taylor and Villas-Boas (2016) evaluate the eect
of such a policy in Richmond, California that combined a ban on lightweight plastic bags with a
ve-cent minimum fee for all other bags. Using similar data (observational data on customer bag
use) and research strategy (comparing bag use before and after a policy change in regulated versus
unregulated cities), this study nds that, unlike with the stand-alone ban, the hybrid ban led to a
substantial reduction in the use of disposable bags of roughly 35 percentage points.
6
While estimates of the eect of disposable bag taxes and hybrid bans on disposable bag use
are encouraging, they may overestimate the eect on overall environmental costs if customers reuse
plastic bags for purposes other than carrying goods. For example, if customers reuse plastic bags
as waste bin liners, plastic bag bans might lead to increased purchases of plastic trash bags. Taylor
(2019) uses county-time variation in the roll-out of various hybrid bans in the state of California
and nds large increases in sales of plastic trash bagsa 120 percent increase for small trash bags
5
Solomon (2016) provides anecdotal evidence of similar behavior among retailers after the implementation of a
stand-alone ban in Honolulu County, Hawaii in 2015. When San Francisco implemented its stand-alone ban, paper
bag use increase by more than fourfold (Freinkel, 2011) motivating a shift to a hybrid ban in 2012.
6
Additionally, the majority of customers used paper bags instead of plastic bags, though customers shopping at a
grocery chain that oered 15-cent thick plastic bags used thick plastic and paper bags in roughly equal proportions.
10(the closest substitute for thin plastic shopping bags). The study shows that over a quarter of the
plastic reduction from the hybrid bans is oset by the increase in purchases of plastic trash bags.
IV. Discussion
In this paper, we lay out several policy design lessons for disposable bag regulations based on
behavioral science theory and supported by empirical evidence. Importantly, many of the studies
highlighted in this review evaluate policies implemented in OECD countries, with the exception of
two Latin American studies, due to our study design decision criteria for inclusion. However, we
believe that the lessons we highlight apply to a broader range of geographies than those discussed
in this review. In fact, many studies employing a simple dierence design also demonstrate large
decreases in disposable bag use in response to small penalties and minimal eects of plastic bag bans
across a wider range of geographies (Rivers, Shenstone-Harris and Young, 2017; Nielsen, Holmberg
and Stripple, 2019).
Two common regulation designs adhere to our policy recommendations: disposable bag taxes
and hybrid bans. Both policies have been shown to yield large decreases in disposable bag use. In
contrast, the most common policy in the US, a stand-alone plastic bag ban, may simply change the
type of disposable bag a customer uses without decreasing overall use and may even cause retailers
to oer free thicker plastic bags that generate more waste. Homono et al. (2020) directly compares
the life-cycle environmental costs associated with disposable bag use under the two disposable
bag regulations in Chicagoa stand-alone ban and a disposable bag taxand nds under the
ban (relative to the tax), customers used the environmental cost equivalent of over six additional
lightweight plastic bags per shopping trip. Importantly, even small bag taxes have been shown
to generate large eects on consumer behavior. As a result, policymakers interested in decreasing
disposable bag use who are concerned about the economic burden and regressivity of a tax may
want to consider a very small tax rather than no tax at all.
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15Preliminary study suggests Chicago’s bag tax reduces
disposable bag use by over 40 percent
Summary. In November 2016, the Chicago City Council repealed its ban on disposable plastic bags and
replaced it with a seven-cent tax on disposable paper and plastic bags, effective February 1, 2017.i,ii
The City of Chicago commissioned a joint study with the behavioral design lab ideas42 and researchers
from New York University and the University of Chicago Energy & Environment Lab to track bag use at
large grocery chains in Chicago and surrounding suburbs before and after the tax went into effect.
Preliminary results from this study show that Chicago’s bag tax has already led to a significant decrease
in both the number of disposable bags used and number of customers using disposable bags. Prior to
implementation, customers shopping in the study’s sample stores in Chicago used an average of just over
two disposable bags per trip, with over 80 percent of customers using at least one disposable bag. After
the tax was implemented, the average number of disposable bags used per shopping trip decreased by
roughly one bag per trip—over a 40 percent decrease. Additionally, less than 50 percent of customers
in Chicago used any disposable bags after the tax was implemented—a decrease of more than 30
percentage points.
Background. One hundred billion plastic bags are used annually in the United States.iii While plastic
bags are often recyclable, only a small percentage actually are recycled (just over five percent
according to one of the latest studies from the EPA).iv Most plastic bags that are not recycled end up in
landfills, where estimates suggest it can take them up to 1,000 years to decompose. Paper bags also
have significant environmental impacts; for example, the paper industry—including paper bags and
other paper products—contributed to 20 percent of all toxic air releases in the US in 2015.v
Starting in 2015, in an effort to curb disposable bag use, the City of Chicago banned chain stores from
providing disposable plastic bags at checkout. However, the ban excluded plastic bags that met certain
requirements, including but not limited to being at least 2.25 mils thick.vi
In November 2016, the Chicago City Council repealed the ban on plastic bags and replaced it with a
seven-cent tax on all paper and plastic checkout bags, starting on February 1, 2017.vii
Reasons for a Tax Instead of a Ban. While the 2015 ban eliminated the use of certain types of
disposable bags, it left others unregulated. As a result, many stores chose to offer the permitted thicker
plastic checkout bags rather than eliminate plastic bags altogether,viii which may have minimized the
environmental impact of the law.ix,x Since stores simply substituted one type of plastic bag for another,
there was no strong cue to customers to change their behavior, and many continued to use the thicker,
“reusable” plastic bags as single-use bags. Separate from the ban, some Chicago stores use small
rewards to incentivize reusable bag use, but previous research has shown that these rewards are similarly
ineffective.xi
In contrast, disposable bag taxes have been shown to have a significant behavioral impact. For example,
a five-cent tax on disposable paper and plastic bags in the Washington, D.C. area led to a large
reduction in overall disposable bag use.xii The differential impact of the tax on disposable bag use and a
1reward for reuseable bag use is consistent with the concept of loss aversion, i.e., individuals experience
losses more strongly than they do gains of the same amount. xiii
Additionally, although Chicago’s seven-cent tax is a small fee, it was designed to be more salient than
the ban. While customers may not notice that their grocery store has switched to providing thicker plastic
bags as a result of the ban, research suggests that customers are likely to notice when an item that they
previously received for free now comes at a price,xiv thus bringing their bag use to the top of their minds.
Results. This study compares shopping bag use for 14,168 customers shopping at large grocery store
chains in Chicago and surrounding suburbs in the months just before and after the bag tax
implementation. The results reported here are based on raw, unadjusted data. The results remain robust
after controlling for various demographic and neighborhood factors.xv
Prior to the implementation of the tax, customers in
Avg. Number of Disposable Bags Chicago used an average of 2.3 disposable bags per
Used Per Trip
shopping trip. Preliminary analysis suggests that the
3.6 3.3 average number of disposable bags used per shopping
2.3 trip decreased by 1.3 bags in the first month that the tax
1.0 was in effect in Chicago, but only 0.3 bags in the stores
outside of Chicago that were not subject to the tax. Taken
together, this suggests that the tax led to a 42 percent
Chicago Non-Chicago reduction in the average number of disposable bags
Pre-Tax Post-Tax used per trip.
% Customers Using Disposable Bags
While the majority of customers in Chicago (82 percent)
91.5 91.6
82.0 used at least one disposable bag prior to the
implementation of the tax, only 49 percent used a
48.8
disposable bag in the first month after the tax was in
effect—a decrease of 33 percentage points. In contrast,
there was no significant change in disposable bag use in
stores outside of Chicago.
Chicago Non-Chicago
Pre-Tax Post-Tax
% Customers Using Reusable Bags After the tax was implemented, many customers in
33.2 Chicago switched from disposable bags to reusable
bags. Reusable bag use in Chicago jumped from 13
percent to 33 percent after the tax was implemented—
13.2 an increase of 20 percentage points.
5.4 5.6
Note: around 3 percent of customers used both a
Chicago Non-Chicago disposable bag and a reusable bag.
Pre-Tax Post-Tax
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