California Governor signs bill to ban all plastic bags at checkout

From now on, when getting groceries bagged at the store, Californians will no longer be asked, “Paper or plastic?”

Yesterday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1053, banning plastic bags from being provided at grocery store checkouts. This move turns off the tap to a notable source of needless plastic waste in California: the plastic grocery bag.

Plastic bags pollute our environment and break down into toxic microplastics that contaminate our drinking water and threaten public health. That’s why our national network has been working hard to ban them across the country. 

In 2014, California made history as the first state to ban plastic grocery bags. Unfortunately, the law allowed grocery stores to still provide plastic bags so long as they were “reusable” and “recyclable.” The result is the plastic industry exploited the intent of the law, mass-producing  slightly thicker, heavier plastic bags that they claimed were  “reusable” and “recyclable.” The reality is, most of these bags were not recycled or reused, and plastic bag waste continued to pollute the state. 

So, our team took up the fight again, and worked to pass a bill in California to truly ban plastic bags. This summer alone, we went door-to-door and gathered thousands of petition signatures backing the bag ban, organized several lobby days in Sacramento, and secured public support from more than 80 city officials, dozens of environmental groups, and the LA Times. All of this support helped the bill move through the state legislature, and ultimately, get signed by the governor.

“Plastic bags create pollution in our environment and break into microplastics that contaminate our drinking water and threaten our health,” said Jenn Engstrom, State Director of CALPIRG. “Californians voted to ban plastic grocery bags in our state almost a decade ago, but the law clearly needed a redo. With the Governor’s signature, California has finally banned plastic bags in grocery checkout lanes once and for all.” 

“Nothing we use for a few minutes should pollute the environment for hundreds of years,” said Laura Deehan, State Director of Environment California. “Finally, with this necessary update to the bag ban, plastic grocery bags will no longer be a threat to sea turtles, birds, and other wildlife in California.”