How the Plastic Panic Hurts Us—and the Planet

City Journal Audio

Manhattan Institute

Politics, News Commentary, News

4.8 • 615 Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2020

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John Tierney joins Brian Anderson to discuss the campaign to ban the use of plastic products and the flawed logic behind the recycling movement—the subjects of Tierney’s story, "The Perverse Panic over Plastic," from the Winter 2020 Issue of City Journal.

Hundreds of cities and eight states have outlawed or regulated single-use plastic bags. But according to Tierney, the plastic panic doesn't make sense. Plastic bags are the best environmental choice at the supermarket, not the worst, and cities that built expensive recycling programs—in the hopes of turning a profit on recycled products—have instead paid extra to get rid of their plastic waste, mostly by shipping it to Asian countries with low labor costs. However, the bans will likely continue as political leaders and private companies seek a renewed sense of moral superiority.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.
0:05.2	Coming up on today's show, I'll be joined in the studio by John Tierney.
0:09.2	John's here to discuss his latest feature essay for City Journal, which appeared in our winter 2020 issue.
0:15.6	It's called The Perverse Panic Over Plastic.
0:18.6	It's a powerful essay that exposes some of the weak thinking behind the campaign
0:23.5	to rid us of plastic bags, bottles, and straws. You can find it on the City Journal website,
0:29.0	and we'll be sure to link to it in the podcast description. John also has a brand new book out,
0:34.4	which we'll talk about toward the end of the interview, called The Power of
0:38.5	Bad, How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It. That's it for the
0:44.5	introduction. We'll take a quick break, Joining me in the studio is John Tierney. You can follow him on Twitter at John Tierney, NYC. John is a contributing editor at
1:13.6	City Journal, and before joining us, he was a reporter and columnist for the New York Times.
1:18.6	He's also a best-selling author. His latest book was just released at the end of the year.
1:23.7	It's called The Power of Bad, How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It.
1:29.5	It's co-authored with Roy Baummeister, and you can find it on Amazon or wherever books are sold.
1:36.8	We'll talk to John briefly about his new book later, but we were eager to get him on the podcast to discuss his latest essay for City Journal,
1:48.6	which is in our winter 2020 issue called The Perverse Panic Over Plastic.
1:51.6	The essay was just adapted in the Wall Street Journal,
1:56.1	so you can check out a shorter version of the piece on their website if you're interested.
1:58.3	John, thanks for joining us.
1:59.1	Thank you, Brian.
2:04.8	So to start, I want to remind our listeners that you've been studying question of recycling and environmentalism in America for decades now.
2:09.0	Back in 1996, the Times published a seminal piece by you on the issue under the provocative headline,
	...

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