Governor of California signs legislation prohibiting plastic shopping bags at grocery stores

CNN
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“Paper or plastic” will not be a selection at grocery retailer checkout traces in California below a brand new law signed Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom that bans all plastic shopping bags.

California had already banned skinny plastic shopping bags at supermarkets and different stores, however consumers may buy bags made with a thicker plastic that purportedly made them reusable and recyclable.

The new measure, permitted by state legislators final month, bans all plastic shopping bags beginning in 2026. Consumers who don’t deliver their very own bags will now merely be requested if they need a paper bag.

State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, one of the invoice’s supporters, stated folks weren't reusing or recycling any plastic bags. She pointed to a state examine that discovered that the quantity of plastic shopping bags trashed per individual grew from 8 kilos (3.6 kilograms) per yr in 2004 to 11 kilos (5 kilograms) per yr in 2021.

Blakespear, a Democrat, stated the earlier bag ban handed a decade in the past didn’t scale back the general use of plastic.

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

The environmental nonprofit Oceana applauded Newsom for signing the invoice and “safeguarding California’s coastline, marine life, and communities from single-use plastic grocery bags.”

Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s plastics marketing campaign director, stated Sunday that the brand new ban on single-use plastic bags at grocery retailer checkouts “solidifies California as a leader in tackling the global plastic pollution crisis.”

Twelve states, together with California, have already got some kind of statewide plastic bag ban in place, in accordance with the environmental advocacy group Environment America Research & Policy Center. Hundreds of cities throughout 28 states even have their very own plastic bag bans in place.

The California Legislature handed 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 stated Sunday that the brand new law lastly meets the intent of the unique bag ban.

“Plastic bags create pollution in our environment and break into microplastics that contaminate our drinking water and threaten our health,” stated the group’s director Jenn Engstrom. “Californians voted to ban plastic grocery bags in our state almost a decade ago, but the law clearly needed a redo. With the Governor’s signature, California has finally banned plastic bags in grocery checkout lanes once and for all.”

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