Why plastic bags will be gone from California groceries by the end of the year

SAN JOSE, Calif. — “Paper or plastic?” Your days are numbered.

The question that millions of shoppers have heard for years when they roll up to the checkout aisle at grocery stores will soon be a thing of the past.

On Friday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a legal settlement with four major plastic bag manufacturing companies to stop selling such bags in California.

State law already mandates that retailers stop using the plastic bags on Jan. 1. Friday’s settlement hits the manufacturers with $1.7 million in penalties, establishes that they violated state law by selling unrecyclable bags for years, and will result in many of the bags being removed from the market early, before the end of this year.

“Billions of plastic carryout bags end up in landfills, incinerators, and the environment instead of being recycled as the bags proclaim,” Bonta said. “Our legal actions today make it clear: No corporation is above the law.”

Bonta had charged that the companies were violating a California law — first signed by former Gov. Jerry Brown in 2014 and then reaffirmed after an industry challenge by voters in a statewide ballot measure, Proposition 67, in 2016. That law banned the flimsy single-use bags at supermarkets and retail stores as a way to reduce litter and ocean pollution. It allowed an exception, however, for thicker plastic bags as long as they were “reusable” or recyclable. Bonta said Friday that the thicker bags are actually not recyclable in California, and the companies were knowingly breaking the law by selling them.

For many shoppers, the settlement was largely moot, however.

Some store chains, including Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, only provide paper bags at the checkout counter. All stores allow shoppers to bring their own reusable bags.

And under a law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year, the thicker plastic bags were required to be phased out anyway at all California supermarkets and retail stores, effective Jan. 1, 2026.

That law, SB 1053, by Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, came after investigations showed the thicker plastic bags weren’t being recycled, as their manufacturers claimed.

An investigation by ABC News in 2023 found that when journalists put electronic tracking tags on 46 bundles of plastic bags left in recycling bins in WalMart and Target stores around the country, only four ended up at recycling centers. Half went to landfills and waste incinerators, seven stopped pinging at transfer stations that don’t recycle or sort plastic bags, six last pinged at the store where they were dropped off, and three ended up in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Although the bags were on the way out in less than three months anyway, environmental groups said Friday they were pleased with Bonta’s settlement.

“It doesn’t make sense for something you use for minutes to last for centuries,” said Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste, a non-profit group based in Sacramento. “Plastic bags end up in the environment. They are eaten by marine mammals. They cause litter. They are so lightweight they float out of garbage trucks.”

Under Friday’s announcement, four plastic bag producers — Revolution Sustainable Solutions, Metro Poly, PreZero US Packaging, and Advance Polybag — agreed to stop selling the thicker plastic bags in California, and agreed to collectively pay $1.7 million in penalties to the state.

Three other large plastic bag makers did not settle. On Friday, Bonta sued them. The lawsuit accuses Novolex Holdings, Inteplast Group, and Mettler Packaging of violating state law.

After being subpoenaed by Bonta’s office, the lawsuit notes, the companies were unable to produce any documents showing how many of the plastic bags they make are recycled at their own facilities; or to provide any evidence that recycling facilities in California recycle plastic bags, including facilities the companies identified as those they believe recycle their bags. Nor could they identify the percentage of plastic bags they sold to stores in California that were recycled.

The attorney general’s office surveyed 69 waste processing and recycling facilities as part of the investigation. Only two claimed to accept plastic bags, Bonta said. But even they could not confirm the bags were actually recycled.

“These bags are not recyclable at any meaningful scale anywhere in California,” he said. “The only thing being recycled are the false claims of the manufacturers.”

A leading plastic bag industry trade association, the American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance, did not respond Friday to requests for comment.

After Jan. 1, there will still be some plastic bags left. They are allowed under state law in retail stores that don’t sell food. And very thin bags — often presented in large rolls that shoppers tear off — are still legal for use in supermarkets for produce and meat.

But those bags, under another law signed by Newsom in 2022, must made of compostable plastic.

Republicans and some retail and grocery industry associations have described the various plastic bag laws as overkill and the latest example of California behaving like a “nanny state.”

“There are too many mandates on what people can and can’t do,” Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, R-Chico, said last year after the Legislature passed the ban on the thicker plastic bags. “I don’t see there’s a big need for it. Let people make the decisions they want to make.”

Environmental groups and coastal advocates say the laws are helping reduce litter and harm to fish, birds, marine mammals, and other wildlife, which can eat the plastic, or become entangled in it and die.

In 2009, plastic grocery bags made up 8.7% of the pieces of litter found in California by volunteers during the annual Coastal Cleanup Day. Last year, they totaled just 1.6%.

“If anyone ever tells you plastic bag bans don’t work this proves them wrong,” said Eben Schwartz, marine debris program manager at the California Coastal Commission. “It’s a huge success story.”

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