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A lot of plastic packaging is just marketing. But there’s still the hygiene angle. On Christmas morning you can be sure the doll you are getting hasn’t been sneezed on by all the other kids in the toy section at Walmart.

In an age when few people had ever been affected by a pandemic, such considerations receded in importance. Meanwhile stories of garbage filling the oceans led to fears that we are wrecking the planet with our throwaway plastic waste.

In response to such fears, just weeks before the coronavirus hit New York City hard, the New York State legislature banned plastic grocery bags. Then as if acknowledging the hygiene connection, the state has temporarily suspended implementation of the law, while urging people to remember to wash their reusable cloth bags.

Whether or not a ban on plastic bags has big implications for public health, the better question to ask is whether it (or similar bans on single-use plastics) will do any good for the world’s oceans. The answer is no. Canada’s single-use plastics are not the source of ocean contamination. Banning them will impose costs and inconvenience here while doing nothing to fix the problem.

As reported by Our World in Data, only a tiny fraction (about three per cent) of the world’s plastic production is handled in such a way that it can end up as ocean waste each year. Very little of that fraction comes from high-income countries because we have effective waste-management systems. Plastic that goes into a Canadian landfill has no chance of ending up in the ocean, especially if the landfill is away from rivers and coastlines. More than 50 per cent of the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch is abandoned fishing nets and gear.