The poverty of plastics bans: Environmentalism’s win is a loss for disabled people

Abstract

Recent proposals in US cities to ban single-use plastic straws have been adopted quickly and met with little resistance. Environmentalists consider this a small but important win for reducing the harmful impact of single-use plastics on our planet overall. Yet there remains a critical mass of people who are systematically left out of the conversation: disabled people. These people are not only overlooked, they are othered for being poor or disabled or both. We argue that while drastically curtailing plastics production, use, and improper disposal is vital, single-use plastics bans, while just for the planet, are not equally just for all humans. Drawing on disability studies and environmental justice literatures, we problematise existing debates surrounding plastics bans, and recast these bans, and their effects, as an unnecessary othering of poor people and disabled people.