“Paper or plastic” will no longer be a choice at supermarket checkouts in California under a new law signed Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom that bans all plastic bags.
California had already banned thin plastic bags from supermarkets and other stores, but consumers could buy bags made with a thicker plastic that supposedly made them reusable and recyclable.
The new measure, approved by state lawmakers last monthbans all plastic bags from 2026. Consumers who do not bring their own bags will now simply be asked if they want a paper bag.
Sen. Catherine Blakespear, a proponent of the bill, said people aren’t reusing or recycling any plastic bags. She pointed to a state study that found the amount of plastic bags thrown away per person increased from 8 pounds per year in 2004 to 11 pounds per year in 2021.
Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, said the previous bag ban passed a decade ago did not reduce overall plastic use.
“We are literally choking our planet with plastic waste,” she said in February.
The environmental nonprofit Oceana praised Newsom for signing the bill and “protecting California’s coastlines, marine life and communities from single-use plastic grocery bags.”
Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s plastics campaign director, said Sunday that the new ban on single-use plastic bags at supermarket checkouts “cements California as a leader in combating the global plastic pollution crisis.”
Twelve states, including California, have already implemented some form of plastic bag ban, according to the environmental advocacy group Environment America Research & Policy Center. Hundreds of cities in 28 states have also implemented their own plastic bag bans.
The California legislature passed a statewide ban on plastic bags in 2014. The law was later upheld by voters in a referendum in 2016.
The California Public Interest Research Group said Sunday that the new law finally fulfills the intent of the original bag ban.
“Plastic bags pollute our environment and break down into microplastics that contaminate our drinking water and threaten our health,” said the group’s director, Jenn Engstrom. “Californians voted to ban plastic bags in our state nearly a decade ago, but the law clearly needed to be revised. With the governor’s signature, California has finally banned plastic bags at supermarket checkouts once and for all.”
As mayor of San Francisco in 2007, Newsom signed the nation’s first plastic bag ban.
