Almost 100 years ago, Justice Brandeis called states the “laboratories of democracy.” The phrase describes how “a state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” Environmental law scholars have argued that states (and cities) are more flexible – and can move faster – and, therefore, offer more opportunity to initiate innovation than does the federal government. And as federal discourse about environmental matters grows more polarized, state and local approaches become more attractive. As Professor Stenzel notes:

The process of starting on the state or local level seems to work well politically, because the public seems more willing to accept new approaches on a local or state level rather than at the national level. Individual states can choose varying mechanisms as the tools for achieving their goals. Then, those laws can be examined to see which options have proven to be the most effective.

This is particularly true when it comes to plastic.

Because a comprehensive federal legislative solution to plastic pollution is unlikely, many states and local entities are using their legislative powers to reduce plastic pollution. Further, given that the regulation of solid waste is considered a state and local – as opposed to a federal – issue, it is not surprising that there is considerable state and local activity aimed at reducing plastic pollution. This activity largely centers on regulating consumer use of single-use plastic products – such as bags and straws – as opposed to focusing on regulating the manufacturing of plastic itself. The goal of these regulatory efforts is source reduction rather than cleaning up plastic in the environment.

Chapter 5 discusses three approaches to reducing plastic pollution: bans, taxes, and container-deposit laws. While bans and taxes on plastics have similar goals – to reduce the number of straws that wash up on our beaches or the amount of bags that float downstream – container deposit laws, or so-called bottle bills, have the additional waste management goal of encouraging recycling. All three approaches to reducing plastic pollution require different policy instruments. Bans adopt a command and control approach to directly regulate behavior, while taxes are market-based instruments that attempt to indirectly regulate behavior by means of price. Container-deposit laws are a market mechanism called a “deposit-refund system,” which combines a tax on plastic consumption with a rebate when the bottle is returned for recycling.

Chapter 5 discusses the occurrence of all three approaches at the state and local levels in the United States. The chapter also discusses attempts to quantify the effectiveness of the different approaches. The chapter concludes by discussing the plastic industry’s longstanding opposition to local and state efforts to reduce plastic pollution, as well as the more recent phenomenon of opposition to reducing plastic pollution by state legislatures themselves which has, in turn, prompted, debates between state and local power.