On top of all this, if plastic bag bans like California's end up causing people to use more paper bags — instead of bringing their reusable ones to the store — it'll certainly end up being worse for the environment. Research shows that making a paper bag consumes about four times more energy than a plastic bag, and produces about four times more waste if it's not recycled.

Wow. Learned something new here. I've never heard this before, but I'm curious to investigate its veracity now. My mind is blown.

Encouraging people to cut down on food waste, on the other hand, would actually mean something.

This is tricky. Food waste is built into the food production system. The end consumer has no control over the production side waste, which is staggering.