🌍 Global Plastic Policy Calculator

What this calculator does

This tool models the effect of a single-use plastic bag policy — ranging from a voluntary awareness campaign to a strong per-bag fee or an outright ban — across a population or city you specify. It estimates how many bags would be avoided each year, how much plastic waste and CO2e emissions that represents, and how much fee revenue a still-in-use bag charge would raise.

How the estimate is calculated

The calculator starts from your baseline bag consumption per person and multiplies it by the population to get total bags used per year. It then applies a reduction rate based on the policy type you select: real-world programs such as Ireland’s 2002 PlasTax (roughly a 90% drop in usage after introducing a per-bag levy) and various national bans show that stronger financial disincentives produce much larger behavior change than awareness campaigns alone, which typically shift usage by around 10-20%. Bags avoided are converted to plastic mass using an average single-use bag weight of about 6 grams, and to CO2e using a widely cited production emission factor of roughly 1.8 kg CO2e per kilogram of plastic (covering the energy used to manufacture HDPE/LDPE bags).

Revenue is calculated only on the bags people still choose to use after the policy takes effect, since a fee is typically charged per bag rather than as a flat tax.

• Figures are planning-level estimates for general and educational use, not an official government or environmental impact assessment.
• Actual reduction rates vary by country, enforcement, fee level, and availability of reusable alternatives.