NY's plastic bag ban returns October 19

NYS DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos updates the public on the Plastic Bag Ban which started in NYS on March 1st, 2020 and the start of the enforcement on Octob...

New York State’s ban on plastic bags began on March 1, 2020. That is, until a lawsuit put the environmentally-forward enforcement on hold.

“New Yorkers use an estimated 23 billion plastic bags annually—each for about 12 minutes,” according to the DEC, “and approximately 85 percent of this staggering total ends up in landfills, recycling machines, waterways, and streets.”

The lawsuit from Poly-Pak Industries included several New York-based businesses – Green Earth Food Corp., Francisco Marte, Mike Hassen, and The Bodega and Small Business Association – claiming the law “prohibits the use and distribution of certain plastic bags but permits the use and distribution of others, and, confusingly, seems both to encourage and simultaneously to forbid the use and distribution of reusable plastic bags while allowing the use and distribution of reusable fabric bags.”

On August 30, Poly-Pak Industries, Inc., et al, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation reached an agreement in the New York State Supreme Court to uphold the plastic bag ban.

New York State’s ban on single-use plastic carryout bags will resume on October 19, 2020. “Any ‘person required to collect tax’ must not distribute any plastic carryout bags to its customers unless such bags are exempt bags as provided for in the Bag Waste Reduction Law,” according to the DEC.

Plastic bags may still be distributed to consumers in a few specific circumstances: a bag used by a pharmacy to carry prescription drugs, and produce bags for bulk items such as fruits and vegetables.

More info: https://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/50034.html

“The Court’s decision is a victory and a vindication of New York State’s efforts to end the scourge of single-use plastic bags and a direct rebuke to the plastic bag manufacturers who tried to stop the law and DEC’s regulations to implement it. As we have for many months, DEC is encouraging New Yorkers to make the switch to reusable bags whenever and wherever they shop and to use common-sense precautions to keep reusable bags clean.”

— DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos

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