An over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of Wash­ing­ton vot­ers sur­veyed on the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s behalf agree that retail­ers ought to be pro­hib­it­ed from dis­trib­ut­ing sin­gle use plas­tic bags statewide to reduce pollution.

In a sur­vey con­duct­ed last autumn by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for NPI, vot­ers enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly endorsed Sen­a­tor Mona Das’ Sen­ate Bill 5323, which would imple­ment a statewide plas­tic bag ban, by a mar­gin of more than two to one.

69% said they agreed that sin­gle use plas­tic bags should be pro­hib­it­ed, while just 26% were opposed. 6% said they were not sure. 

The find­ing was announced today at a press con­fer­ence in down­town Olympia with Sen­a­tor Mona Das, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Strom Peter­son, and lead­ers from NPI’s friends at Zero Waste Wash­ing­ton and Surfrid­er Foundation.

NPI Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andrew Vil­leneuve leads a press con­fer­ence announc­ing the release of new research show­ing strong sup­port for a plas­tic bag ban (Pho­to: Car­olyn Barclift/NPI)

SB 5323 is an NPI leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ty for the 2020 ses­sion. Last year, the bill passed by the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate with bipar­ti­san sup­port, but did not receive a vote in the House. Hap­pi­ly, less than an hour ago, the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate once again passed SB 5323, this time by a vote of thir­ty to nine­teen. The leg­is­la­tion now returns to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives for its consideration.

Our research shows that Wash­ing­to­ni­ans are eager for Sen­ate Bill 5323 to reach Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s desk and be signed into law.

Here’s the ques­tion we asked, and the respons­es we received:

QUESTION: Do you strong­ly agree, some­what agree, some­what dis­agree or strong­ly dis­agree with the fol­low­ing state­ment: Wash­ing­ton State should reduce ocean pol­lu­tion and waste in land­fills by pro­hibit­ing retail­ers from hand­ing out thin, sin­gle use plas­tic bags, while allow­ing stores to pro­vide their cus­tomers with paper bags or durable, reusable plas­tic bags for eight cents each, with the eight cent fee waived for those on food stamps?

ANSWERS:

• Agree: 69%
  • Strong­ly Agree: 48%
  • Some­what Agree: 21%
• Dis­agree: 26% 
  • Some­what Dis­agree: 7%
  • Strong­ly Dis­agree: 19%
• Not Sure: 6%

Our sur­vey of nine hun­dred like­ly 2019 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field Octo­ber 22nd-23rd, 2019. The sur­vey used a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines and text mes­sages to cell phone only respon­dents. As men­tioned, the poll was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for NPI, and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.3% at the 95% con­fi­dence level.

A major­i­ty of peo­ple in every region of the state expressed sup­port for ban­ning sin­gle use plas­tic bags, includ­ing 80% of King Coun­ty vot­ers, 72% of North Sound vot­ers, 67% of South Sound vot­ers, 66% of Olympic Penin­su­la and South­west Wash­ing­ton vot­ers, and 53% of vot­ers in East­ern and Cen­tral Washington.

Accord­ing to the Nation­al Con­fer­ence of State Leg­is­la­tures (NCSL), eight states have so far banned sin­gle-use plas­tic bags: Cal­i­for­nia, Con­necti­cut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Ore­gon and Ver­mont. Five of those states enact­ed their bans last year, when Sen­a­tor Das’ SB 5323 was ini­tial­ly introduced.

If Wash­ing­ton adopts SB 5323 this year — and it must — then the entire Pacif­ic coast (with the excep­tion of Alas­ka) will have sin­gle use plas­tic bag bans.

Many cities and coun­ties with­in Wash­ing­ton already have their own plas­tic bag bans; Edmonds was the first to adopt one near­ly a decade ago. But most local juris­dic­tions still don’t have one. If Sen­ate Bill 5323 is enact­ed, then the entire state will be com­mit­ted to tak­ing an impor­tant step to reduce plas­tic pollution.

What makes thin, sin­gle use plas­tic bags so awful? In a sen­tence, they are ener­gy inten­sive to make, used and dis­posed of rather quick­ly, and then per­sist in our envi­ron­ment for an extreme­ly long time. Here are ten facts about sin­gle use plas­tic bags that you should know from the Cen­ter For Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty:

1. Amer­i­cans use 100 bil­lion plas­tic bags a year, which require twelve mil­lion bar­rels of oil to manufacture.
2. It only takes about four­teen plas­tic bags for the equiv­a­lent of the gas required to dri­ve one mile.
3. The aver­age Amer­i­can fam­i­ly takes home almost 1,500 plas­tic shop­ping bags a year.
4. Accord­ing to Waste Man­age­ment, only one per­cent of plas­tic bags are returned for recy­cling. That means that the aver­age fam­i­ly only recy­cles fif­teen bags a year; the rest end up in land­fills or as litter.
5. Up to eighty per­cent of ocean plas­tic pol­lu­tion enters the ocean from land.
6. At least two hun­dred and six­ty-sev­en dif­fer­ent species have been affect­ed by plas­tic pol­lu­tion in the ocean.
7. 100,000 marine ani­mals are killed by plas­tic bags annually.
8. One in three leatherback sea tur­tles have been found with plas­tic in their stomachs.
9. Plas­tic bags are used for an aver­age of twelve min­utes.
10. It takes five hun­dred (or more) years for a plas­tic bag to degrade in a land­fill. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the bags don’t break down com­plete­ly but instead pho­to-degrade, becom­ing microplas­tics that absorb tox­ins and con­tin­ue to pol­lute the environment.

The Earth is the one com­mon home that we all share… and we’re trash­ing it.

We need to change our ways. It’s absolute­ly imper­a­tive that we work togeth­er to live more sus­tain­ably. Wash­ing­to­ni­ans know that plas­tic pol­lu­tion is a prob­lem, and they want their elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives to address it. The Wash­ing­ton State House must join the Sen­ate this year in adopt­ing leg­is­la­tion that will cut down the num­ber of plas­tic bags being thrown away after just a few min­utes of use.