Article and many comments fail to weigh the meaning of epoch. We congratulate ourselves for translating between Egyptians and Greeks. That's a fart in geologic time.

The insurance industry does this very thing. When you require automobile owners to hold liability insurance, the driver winds up paying a lot to be a high risk (multiple DUI, multiple accident). If all gun owners are required to purchase similar liability insurance, the insurers will track 8Chan and high risk individuals rates wil go up. Then the high risk individuals will try not insuring their guns. That creates a pre-crime, someone could be arrested for owning an uninsured gun the same as a drunk who doesn't insure his car can be pulled over. Not perfect, but it would be self funding, somewhat self regulating, and probably work better than anything else I've seen proposed.

As a pro, and resident of a USA state that just passed the same ban (Vermont), I have to say I'm skeptical that this will do more than make people feel like they did something. 1) it has nothing at all to do with ocean litter (that comes from 10 large coastal cities in emerging markets who need traditional solid waste and litter and stormwater management). 2) it has not been shown to decrease the amount of plastic, as the bags are replaced by durable plastic which has to be used a minimun number of times before it breaks even (and the replacement 'straws' have had no lifecycle analysis test at all).

What generally works better is a deposit or price system, forcing people to pay for straws and bags. There's a good argument to be made that people who don't use or need single use plastic should not be subsidizing "free" ones (and human response to anything that appears to be "free" is to consume more of it, logically or not). An even better argument can be made towards reforming the General Mining Act of 1872 and other raw material extraction subsidies worldwide, so that the economics of single use or durables are recognized by liberals, conservatives, and uncritical minds alike.

One last problem is "moral licensing". People who "vote for" or "support" proposals that are "grasping at straws" generally suffer from undue sense of righteousness, proven to increase liberties taken in other environmental impact spheres.

News at 11

As someone who spends a lot of time in Africa since 1984, my suspicion is that African autocrats are the ones with the money and the interest in twisting what has become a pretty nice progress in peaceful elections and orderly transition during the past decade. From the election of Africa's first woman president in Liberia, to the two orderly presidential elections in Africa's largest democracy (Nigeria), there is a lot of positive traction which is unfortunately not getting much coverage in the press. The danger with African democracy is the same as Alexis de Tocqueville identified in Democracy in America - tyranny of the majority, and undereducated voters. If someone (like Putin) just wanted to create chaos in Africa (not sure why he would see that in his interest, but there's a theory that Putin wants a dropping tide to lower all boats, so that Russia doesn't stand out as a failure. I don't necessarily believe that, but the "flat earth" and anti-vaxx campaign funding is hard to explain otherwise, and particularly toxic in Africa.

People who work in ruler factories more likely to know how long their fingers are.

Most people don't remember the widespread leasing days for home appliances. Most manufacturers preferred to get 100% of the money up front by selling their devices. Then they tried to write warranties in a way to have their cake and eat it too, but Congress passed the MagMoss Act of 1975 (you don't have to provide a warranty, but you do it has to work). What needs to be fixed are US Copyright laws, now that so many devices (including cars) require software.

When I'm someday a reclusive billionaire, someone will do this by extracting my fingerprints from doorknobs with tape. It's just a matter of time and lottery tickets.

Have lived in Europe, where you have to pay something significant for a single use plastic bag, and I got used to it. I don't think the single-use bag bans are going to make a substantial difference for the environment (they tend to promote moral licensing, as people feel entitled to buy a bigger car if they feel good about recycling, etc). But seeing conservatives and liberals using environmental policy as a club to beat each other with, or feel all victim-chic put-upon by, is getting kind of tiresome.