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Here’s a thread titled: WHY ARE WE TAXING PLASTIC BAGS BUT BANNING PLASTIC STRAWS? (1/N)
Confession: I recently started carrying around a reusable aluminum straw. (2/N) 
Why? Plastic is pretty terrible for the environment, our oceans, etc., and I tend to feel good about doing my part (recognizing that my marginal contribution is trivial; cc: @GernotWagner's gwagner.com/books/but-will…) (3/N)
Because of the environment, companies like @Starbucks & @McDonalds are starting to ban plastic straws. (4/N) nationalgeographic.com/environment/20…
Cities are taking measures to eradicate the straw (e.g., @seattlespu, @austintexasgov) (5/N)
washingtonpost.com/News/post-nati…
washingtonpost.com/News/post-nati…
In general, these are virtuous, if not a bit draconian, policies. Fewer single-use plastic straws for consumption mean fewer single-use plastic straws in the ocean. (6/N)
This will undoubtedly result in goofy looking plastic lids on your iced coffee. (7/N) thrillist.com/News/Nation/st…
But, let’s circle back to my aluminum straw. Pretty silly right? Have you ever brought your own reusable bag to the grocery store? Reusable bags were silly too. (8/N)
Why did you start lugging your broccoli around in a grimy tote bag? Probably in part because (a) you felt bad about plastic consumption and/or (b) your grocery started charging you a nickel for each plastic bag you used. (9/N)
The “moral utility” you get from bringing your bags is helpful in other settings too: energy and water conservation, charitable giving, etc. (10/N) aeaweb.org/articles?id=10…
The economic incentive to reduce plastic bag usage is pretty trivial for most individuals, but incentives work! (see this forthcoming @AEAjournals paper by @TatianaHomonoff ): (11/N)
aeaweb.org/articles?id=10…
aeaweb.org/articles?id=10…
This is an important result: small taxes can have pretty big effects on behavior. Plastic bag taxes reduced consumption by over 40 percentage points. (12/N)
Why are these effects so large? The tax is a small increment on top of a grocery bill, which shouldn’t change behavior much. But, part of this could be due to loss aversion: people react to losses more strongly than gains. (13/N)
A related explanation seen in other settings is that people place an irrationally large value on getting things for free (e.g., see some of my recent @RFF_org work with @gnarbok: caseyjwichman.com/wp-content/upl…) (14/N)
The other cool thing about taxes is that they raise revenue. Us environmental economists tend to prefer monetary incentives to change behavior rather than things like, um, banning plastic straws. There are few reasons: (15/N)
First, tax revenue is good. Off the top of my head, we could use that to fund stormwater infrastructure, river and shore clean-ups, R&D for biodegradable straw technology, you get the picture… (16/N)
Second, incentives work. By levying a tax on major retailers of beverages, they’ll pass that cost on to the consumer, which will reduce consumption of plastic straws AND allow people who value straws to continue using them. (17/N)
Third. You don’t have to infringe on people’s fundamental human right to disposable straws. The government can pry my disposable plastic straw out of my cold dead hands (because, y’know, it will outlive me…) (18/N)
Caveat: plastic straw/bag taxes are regressive policies for those who cannot afford alternatives. But, (a) it's not clear that banning straws won't increase costs and (b) banning straws also has distributional effects, particularly for people with disabilities. (19/N)
Anyway, just a reminder that us economists have been thinking about these things for a while (e.g., scholar.harvard.edu/weitzman/files…), and maybe we should use some of those insights in designing smarter policies. (20/N)
Until then, feel good about yourself: (N/N) amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss…
(More info on plastic pollution!)
