California’s Plastic Bag Ban

The Persistent Problem with Plastic Bags

Lightweight plastic bags are a unique threat to the environment. Unlike other waste, these bags can travel long distances over land, pushed by the wind like a tumbleweed. They are blown by the wind out of trash cans, garbage trucks and landfills, and often do not stop until they reach a stream, river or the ocean.

Once in our waterways, they do not biodegrade, but instead break apart into smaller pieces and soak up toxins. Once they are consumed by fish, turtles and whales that mistake them for food, those toxins make their way up the food chain. The Ocean Conservancy recently deemed plastic bags as the #2 deadliest threat to sea turtles, birds, and marine mammals.

Previous to California's single-use plastic bag ban, the state used between 13 and 20 billion of these bags every year, but only 3% were recycled. This is because they were not collected in curbside recycling, and have an low recycling value.

NRDC estimated that every year previous to the statewide single-use plastic bag ban, California cities spent about $11 per resident to keep litter from ending up in our oceans as marine pollution. For California, the overall cost to protect our waters from litter was roughly $428 million each year--with between 8% to 25% attributable to plastic bags alone according to clean up data from San Jose and Los Angeles County. Based on this information, an estimated 34 million to 107 million dollars was spent each year prior to the statewide single use plastic bag ban to manage plastic bag litter in the state. Additionally, Southern California cities estimated to have spent in excess of $1.7 billion in meeting Total Maximum Daily Loads for trashed in impaired waterways.

Numerous recent international, national, state and local reports have called for the banning or drastic reduction of plastic bags due to their environmental damage. Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environmental Program, recently said "there is simply zero justification for manufacturing [plastic bags] any more, anywhere.”

It’s Time to #BanTheBag for Good

The California State Legislature has passed SB 1053 to amend the 2014 bag ban to no longer allow stores to provide ‘thicker’ plastic bags at check stands as a ‘reusable’ bag. Only paper bags will be offered for sale/distribution at check stand. The bill is currently awaiting Governor Newsom’s signature and has until September 30, 2024 to be signed into law.

Consumer surveys conducted by Alameda County Waste Management Authority (Stopwaste.org) echoed the change, showing that consumers requiring a store-provided bag went from 81% before the ban to just 30%-40%, with better than 60% bringing their own reusable bags (or not requiring a bag). But in the post-COVID era, those numbers reversed, with 50-53% requiring a store-provided bag and those bringing their own reusable bag dropping to 43%. And increasingly those store-provided bags were the thicker plastic bags exempted under SB 270 as a ‘reusable’ bag.

By 2021, CalRecycle waste data documented a substantial increase (108%) in the disposal of plastic bags in the residential waste stream compared to 2018, and even surpassing 2014 (pre-ban) levels.

SB 270 - California's Statewide Single-Use Plastic Bag Ban

Senate Bill 270 prohibited the distribution of single-use plastic bags at grocery, drug, and convenience stores and requires that reusable bags have a minimum 10 cent fee.

SB 270 was signed into law in 2014, and soon after out-of-state plastic bag manufacturers was challenged the measure. The plastics industry intended to repeal the law by running a deceptive campaign, Prop 65, after gathering enough signatures to qualify the measure for a referendum vote in 2016. The law was meant to be phased in over time, but the referendum effectively put the law's implementation on hold until November 9, 2016. Ultimately, CAW and others who worked to uphold the bag ban prevailed with the Yes on 67 campaign. California voters approved the referendum vote of SB 270 by a 53.27% affirmative vote, proving that our environmental values can't be bought out by out of state special interest groups.

Impact of the Statewide Single-Use Grocery Bag Ban

Impact of COVID-19 on California’s Bag Ban

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Newsom signed an executive order on April 23, 2020 to lift the 10 cent charge on single-use bags, effective for 60 days. While the Governor’s executive order in no way prohibits reusable bags, some stores took this step on their own during the height of the pandemic.

While the use of reusable grocery bags was never linked to any virus transmission, we had no objection to the intent of these actions at that time. When customers and store employees follow best practices as outlined in recent CAL-OSHA Health and safety guidance for grocery stores, the use of reusable bags is safe, and beneficial (environmentally and economically).

For more on the impacts of COVID-19 on California’s Bag Ban, click here.

Local Plastic Bag Ban Ordinances

Local jurisdictions led the fight on single-use plastic bags prior to the passage of SB 270 with 151 CA Cities and Counties adopted plastic bag ban ordinances prior to the passage of the statewide bag ban in 2014.

Cities, counties, and recyclers used to spend exorbitant amounts of time and money removing plastic bags from their recyclables stream, where bags jammed machinery and added to the manual labor costs of recycling. San Jose had previously estimated an annual loss of $1 million each year due to plastic bag related repairs in their facilities. In early 2013, it was reported that a recycling facility in Sacramento shut down six times a day to remove bags from their machines. Ultimately, these bags were simply too expensive to recycle.

Local bans have directly eliminated over 5 billion plastic shopping bags per year or 66 million lbs of plastic bags and associated litter. Local policies have reduced paper bag consumption by nearly 400 million bags annually.

For a statewide list of local ordinances passed prior to SB 270, click here.

For a nationwide list of local ordinances, click here. (last updated 3/9/2018)

Looking to pass an ordinance prohibiting single use plastic bags, check out our Plastic Bag Ban Toolkit.

Compliance for Stores and Reusable Bag Manufacturers

For more details on what stores are covered by California’s statewide bag ban and if your reusable bags compliant with the California bag ban, click here.