“Paper or plastic?” has been the query hundreds of thousands of shoppers have heard after they go to the checkout for years.
But in California, that universal expression may soon be: “Yada, yada, yada,” “Heeere's Johnny!” and “Send me a fax.”
On Tuesday, California state Senate and House lawmakers approved two bills that will ban supermarkets, retail stores and convenience stores from providing customers with thicker, reusable plastic bags. If these bills pass the opposite chamber and are signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, as is probably going, the measures would take effect on January 1, 2026.
California already bans thin, single-use white plastic bags in most supermarkets and retail stores. They were banned in 2016 when voters passed Proposition 67, out of concern about ocean plastic pollution and trash.
However, that ballot measure contained a loophole inserted by some Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento who had plastic bag factories of their districts, saying that thicker plastic bags could still be utilized in stores in the event that they were labeled as recyclable and may very well be reused.
Now a coalition of environmental groups and their supporters on the state Capitol are demanding that these bags go, too.
“With stricter regulations and environmentally friendly alternatives, we are ready to kick plastic bags in the bin and reclaim our environment,” said Representative Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (Democrat of Orinda), who introduced considered one of the bills.
The variety of these sturdier plastic bags with handles, widely utilized in stores like Safeway and Target, is increasing, and studies show that the majority of them are usually not recycled.
An ABC News investigation last yr found that when journalists attached electronic tracking tags to 46 bundles of plastic bags left in recycling bins at WalMart and Target stores nationwide, only 4 of them ended up in recycling centers. Half ended up in landfills and incinerators, seven stopped pinging at transfer stations that don't recycle or sort plastic bags, six last pinged at the shop where they were dropped off, and three ended up in Indonesia and Malaysia, where U.S. trash is shipped for processing.
Cal Recycle, the state agency that tracks trash going to landfills, found that there have been 83,000 tons of plastic bags within the state's waste stream in 2014. After the statewide food ban, that number dropped to 67,000 tons. But by 2021, it had risen to 139,000 tons.
One reason is that the baggage became cheaper to fabricate and that in 2020, when the COVID pandemic began, Newsom's administration banned people from bringing their very own cloth bags into stores out of fear the virus may very well be transmitted through the baggage. Later studies found that this was not the case.
“It seemed like behavior had changed, and that led to increased plastic use,” said Nate Rose, a spokesman for the California Grocers Association, which supports the bills. “Looking back, we knew so little about COVID and how it spread.”
He noted that some stores, including Whole Foods and Trader Joes, already only offer paper bags at checkout. The grocery industry has faced several lawsuits from consumers who claim the thick plastic bags aren't actually recyclable, as stores claim.
“It won’t be a fundamentally different shopping scenario,” Rose said. “Paper bags will still be available and you can bring your own bags from home. It should be a smooth transition.”
The two bills are SB 1053 by Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas), which passed the state Senate by a vote of 30 to 7, and AB 2236 by Bauer-Kahan, which passed the Assembly by a vote of 51 to 7. Newsom has not said how he would take a position on the bills, but he has signed others lately to strengthen recycling laws.
Some politicians say the measures are the newest example of California behaving like a “nanny state.”
“There are too many rules about what people can and can’t do,” said Assembly Republican Chairman James Gallagher of Chico. “What car they can drive and things like that. I don't see much need for it. Let people make the decisions they want to make.”
Two other states, New York and New Jersey, have also banned thicker reusable plastic shopping bags on account of environmental concerns.
The California bills would also require paper bags to contain at the very least 50% recycled paper (up from the present 40%) and require stores to charge at the very least 10 cents per bag to cover their costs.
Under the draft bills, one sort of plastic would still be allowed in supermarkets, retail stores and convenience stores: thin bags on rolls used to store loose vegatables and fruits, or within the meat department.
But these are also changing. A law Newsom signed in 2022 by Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman (Democrat of Stockton) requires that these kind of bags, known in food market jargon as “pre-checkout bags,” get replaced with bags no later than January 1, 2025 made from recycled paper or bags made from compostable plastic should be replaced.
Environmental groups point to studies showing that hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic find yourself on the earth's oceans, breaking into trillions of tiny confetti-like pieces and being eaten by fish, including fish that eat humans.
“When you ask at the checkout whether you want paper or plastic, you don't say, 'Do you want recycled paper bags or plastic bags that will take more than 100 years to decompose, that could pollute the sea and discolor?'” in ours Food and our drinking water?'” said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, a Sacramento advocacy group.
“It's not a summary. It becomes part of the ocean food web. And we are literally consuming our own plastic waste when we eat fish,” he said.
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