"Canada Wants to Ban Single-Use Plastics"

Question

by Vicky Stein

Some data exists on the effectiveness of city-wide plastic bag bans — San Jose, California, for instance, cut plastic litter in storm drains by 89 percent — but this kind of large-scale ban has never been tried before. The closest predecessor to Canada’s plans will be the upcoming single-use product bans in the European Union. The Canadian government is likely to follow the same research and recommendations as the EU, the official said.

But environmental engineer Morton Barlaz of North Carolina State University posits that bans might not be the best solution for our planet’s growing plastics problem.

“Nothing works like an incentive better than money. Instead of banning bags, we could start charging for them,” Barlaz said. Under that strategy, the hope would be to avoid losing access to useful products like plastic bags and straws outright, and instead voluntarily cut their use.

“Anything we’re talking about — a straw, a plastic bag, a piece of cutlery — it has a function consumers want. If we ban it, we need to think about the alternative and what that alternative does for people and the environment,” Barlaz said.

1 of 2
Question
Use the article excerpt to answer the question.

According to Morton Barlaz, how can a large-scale plastics ban policy potentially show fallacious reasoning?

(1 point)
Responses

Replacing banned single-use plastics with biodegradable plastics will not solve disposal problems.
Replacing banned single-use plastics with biodegradable plastics will not solve disposal problems.

Thinking about what alternatives do for people and the environment could help to improve disposal problems.
Thinking about what alternatives do for people and the environment could help to improve disposal problems.

Increasing the cost of oil could decrease the interest in using petroleum-based plastics.
Increasing the cost of oil could decrease the interest in using petroleum-based plastics.

Charging people for single-use plastics could decrease demand for these problematic items.

Answer 1

According to Morton Barlaz, a large-scale plastics ban policy can potentially show fallacious reasoning because it may overlook the importance of considering the alternatives and their impacts. He emphasizes that banning single-use plastics without evaluating what those alternatives do for people and the environment could lead to unintended consequences.

Therefore, the response that best captures this reasoning is:

Thinking about what alternatives do for people and the environment could help to improve disposal problems.