New York passes ban on single-use plastic bags

New York has now become the second state in the U.S. to adopt a ban on single-use plastic bags.

New York’s Legislature passed the ban on March 31. It passed the state Senate by a vote of 39 to 22 and the Assembly by 100 to 42.

The bag provision will take effect starting March 1, 2020. It will ban most single-use plastic bags provided by supermarkets and other stores. Individual counties will have the option of charging five cents for paper bags, with two cents going to local governments and three cents to the state’s Environmental Protection Fund. The two cents that will go to local governments will be spent to purchase and distribute reusable shopping bags.

In addition to California – which banned single-use plastic bags in 2014 – and now New York, all of Hawaii’s counties ban plastic bags but it’s not a state-mandated ban.