California’s Gavin Newsom signs law banning all plastic bags at grocery stores | California

“Paper or plastic” will not be a selection at grocery retailer checkout strains in California underneath a brand new regulation signed on Sunday by the governor, Gavin Newsom, that bans all plastic purchasing luggage.

California had already banned skinny plastic purchasing luggage at supermarkets and different shops, however buyers might buy luggage made with a thicker plastic that purportedly made them reusable and recyclable.

The brand new measure, accredited by state legislators final month, bans all plastic purchasing luggage beginning in 2026. Shoppers who don’t carry their very own luggage will now merely be requested if they need a paper bag.

State senator Catherine Blakespear, one of many invoice’s supporters, stated folks weren’t reusing or recycling any plastic luggage. She pointed to a state examine that discovered that the quantity of plastic purchasing luggage trashed an individual grew from 8lb (3.6kg) a yr in 2004 to 11lb a yr in 2021.

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

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

The environmental non-profit Oceana applauded Newsom for signing the invoice and “safeguarding California’s shoreline, marine life, and communities from single-use plastic grocery luggage”.

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

Twelve states, together with California, have already got some sort of statewide plastic bag ban in place, in keeping with the environmental advocacy group Surroundings America Analysis & Coverage Heart. Tons of of cities throughout 28 states even have their very own plastic bag bans in place.

The California legislature handed its statewide ban on plastic luggage in 2014. The regulation was later affirmed by voters in a 2016 referendum.

The California Public Curiosity Analysis Group stated on Sunday that the brand new regulation lastly meets the intent of the unique bag ban.

“Plastic luggage create air pollution in our surroundings and break into microplastics that contaminate our ingesting water and threaten our well being,” stated the group’s director, Jenn Engstrom. “Californians voted to ban plastic grocery luggage in our state virtually a decade in the past, however the regulation clearly wanted a redo. With the governor’s signature, California has lastly banned plastic luggage in grocery checkout lanes as soon as and for all.”

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