Calif Gov. Newsom signs law banning ‘all plastic shopping bags at grocery stores’ after ‘reusable & recyclable’ bags were NOT being reused & plastic bag trash grew from 8 pounds to 11 pounds per person per year

https://apnews.com/article/california-plastic-bag-ban-406dedf02b416ad2bb302f498c3bce58

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — “Paper or plastic” will no longer be a choice at grocery store checkout lines in California under a new law signed Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom that bans all plastic shopping bags.

California had already banned thin plastic shopping bags at supermarkets and other stores, but shoppers could purchase bags made with a thicker plastic that purportedly made them reusable and recyclable.

The new measure, approved by state legislators last month, bans all plastic shopping bags starting in 2026. Consumers who don’t bring their own bags will now simply be asked if they want a paper bag.

State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, one of the bill’s supporters, said people were not reusing or recycling any plastic bags. She pointed to a state study that found that the amount of plastic shopping bags trashed per person grew from 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms) per year in 2004 to 11 pounds (5 kilograms) per year in 2021.

Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, said the previous bag ban passed a decade ago didn’t reduce the overall use of plastic.

“We are literally choking our planet with plastic waste,” she said in February.

Twelve states, including California, already have some type of statewide plastic bag ban in place, according to the environmental advocacy group Environment America Research & Policy Center. Hundreds of cities across 28 states also have their own plastic bag bans in place.

The California Legislature passed its statewide ban on plastic bags in 2014. The law was later affirmed by voters in a 2016 referendum.

The California Public Interest Research Group said Sunday that the new law finally meets the intent of the original bag ban.

…

As San Francisco’s mayor in 2007, Newsom signed the nation’s first plastic bag ban.

#

Related Links: 

The Perverse Panic over Plastic: ‘San Fran’s plastic-bag ban caused greenhouse emissions from grocery bags to rise by at least 9%’

Back to plastic? Reusable ‘eco-friendly’ grocery bags may cause food poisoning

Reusable ‘eco-friendly’ bags may be less ‘green’ than plastic bags: ‘Cotton bags may cause more global warming, as a greater amount of energy goes into making a cloth carrier than a polythene one’

Are we drowning in reusable grocery bags? ‘A cotton bag has to be used 131 times to equal environmental impact of producing one plastic bag’

Lomborg: Banning plastic bags won’t save our planet – Reusable shopping bag has to be used 20,000 times to have less damage than a plastic bag

Stossel: COVID-19 Measures Highlight Absurdity of Plastic Bag Bans

Claim: Face masks are a ticking plastic bomb – ‘Cannot be readily biodegraded’

Green groups pushing to ban ‘single-use plastics across the entire federal govt’ – But ban ‘would not benefit the environment’

New Jersey Plastic Bag Ban Followed By ‘near tripling of plastic consumption’

American Energy Alliance’s Candidate Profile: Kamala Harris on Energy – Fracking Bans – Co-Sponsor Green New Deal – Climate Equity – EV Mandates – Bans On Plastic

San Francisco reverses ban on plastic bags, now bans reusable totes due to coronavirus

Ban Plastic Bags! No, Never Mind! – ‘Suddenly, politicians are canceling their bans. Instead, they’re banning the once praised reusable bags’ in era of COVID