The plastic retail bag could be history in California, with the legislature voting to pass a new plastic ban that will allow only paper bags at checkout.
The plastics industry, which fought the measure and pushed for its bags to be part of the state's extended producer responsibility recycling system, says the new ban will gut the manufacturing of recycled-content plastic bags that have been allowed under the state's 2014 bag ban.
The state Assembly passed the new plastic ban 56-7 on Aug. 29, a day after the state Senate adopted an identical measure on a 31-8 vote. Supporters said it would correct flaws in the 2014 ban.
The legislation still needs to pass one more round of voting in each chamber, which some observers expect, and Gov. Gavin Newsom has until Sept. 30 to veto it.
The American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance said it will urge Newsom to veto it.
"We hope Gov. Newsom will consider the true effects of this bill on California's recycling industry, jobs, and the environment, and we urge him to veto this legislation," said ARPBA Director Erin Hass. "Gov. Newsom will have a tough decision on his hands."
One of the main authors of the legislation, Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, put out a news release Aug. 29 celebrating the votes and saying that plastic bags remain difficult to recycle in the state.
"Instead of being asked do you want paper or plastic at checkout, consumers will simply be asked if they want a paper bag," Blakespear said. "This easy change eliminates plastic bags from the point of sale and helps California significantly reduce the plastic waste that is contaminating our environment and waters."
Supporters said it would encourage consumers to bring reusable bags. The legislation, which takes effect in January 2026, requires stores to charge at least 10 cents for the paper bags, which must have 50 percent recycled content starting in 2028.
ARPBA said the new bag laws will work against a $70 million investment Newsom recently announced to modernize the state's recycling and bottle bill infrastructure.
"The existing plastic film bags allowed under current law (SB 270) are recyclable and have supported a robust recycling industry in California," Hass said. "If these bills are signed into law, jobs will be eliminated, and tax revenue will be lost."
"Other states, like New Jersey, have enacted similar legislation that has resulted in the widespread use of imported cloth-like, non-recyclable plastic bags, which have become the new single-use bags," she said. "Plastic consumption and waste have skyrocketed, and California will likely see a similar fate."
Hass said the measure would "gut" the manufacturing of recycled content plastic checkout bags.
ARPBA and a new industry group that formed in California, the Responsible Recycling Alliance, had urged the state, as an alternative to the new ban, to put plastic bags under the state's new EPR law, known as SB 54.
That law requires a recycling rate of 65 percent for plastic packaging by 2032. A legislative analysis of the California bill said plastic bags and film have a recycling rate of about 10 percent in the state.
RRA and its allies argued that paper bags have a higher carbon footprint than plastic bags and are reused, but supporters of the new ban said the plastic bag industry had failed to build an effective recycling system for their products.
The state first passed a plastic bag ban in 2014, and voters upheld it in 2016. That law allowed the sale of plastic retail bags with 40 percent recycled content, arguing they were reusable.
But supporters of the new ban said consumers did not reuse them, and pointed to state government data showing that Californians used and threw away 47 percent more plastic bags, by weight, in 2022 than they did in 2014.
They said very few of the plastic bags are reused or recycled, and they pointed to failures in store drop-off programs. The plastic bags often wind up in landfills or the environment, they said.
"We deserve a cleaner future for our communities, our children and our earth," said Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, another author of the bill. "It's time for us to get rid of these plastic bags and continue to move forward with a more pollution-free environment."
RRA said the bills would have negative consequences for the environment, businesses and consumers.
"These lawmakers chose to enact legislation that they know is flawed despite specific examples, studies, and polls that show banning plastic film grocery bags hurts consumers, businesses, is not what Californians want, and does not help the environment or limit plastic waste," said Roxanne Spiekerman, RRA spokesperson and vice president of public affairs for recycler PreZero US.
RRA said the new laws undercut the investments made after the 2016 bag ban.
"We're just now starting to see the benefits of the plastic recycling programs introduced via 2016's SB 270," Spiekerman said. "If Governor Newsom signs these bills into law, California will undercut a decade of hard work that improved our state's environment and will effectively have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars invested in this critical effort."
"Equally concerning is the fact that shoppers will simultaneously lose a convenient way to transport their groceries, and the critical infrastructure that has been built over the last decade to recycle the millions of pounds of plastic waste that already exist," she said.
Hass said the new ban could have enforcement challenges, because it grandfathers in local government bans enacted before 2014 covering about 40 percent of the state's residents.
"All other localities will lose the autonomy to legislate this issue for their residents and be subject to state rule," she said. "Legal chaos will ensue."