Walmart, Target and Albertsons, along with other grocery giants, are making a big change to their stores in California.
Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law prohibiting the use of plastic bags in these types of stores in the state.
The change will come into legal effect on January 1, 2026 and will affect all grocery stores.
Some grocery chains, like Whole Foods, have already phased out plastic bags at checkout nationwide.
Consumers will be encouraged to bring their own shopping bags and those who do not will be offered a paper alternative.
The new law will only affect plastic bags used at supermarket checkouts, not plastic bags containing agricultural products.
Californians Will Soon Be Offered Paper Bags at the Grocery Checkout
The change comes after a decade of hard campaigning by politicians trying to ban the bags.
A similar law was passed in California in 2014, but it only banned thin plastic bags, leaving a loophole for stores to use thicker plastic.
California Environmental Director Laura Deehan told local news that the bags actually generated more waste as shoppers did not reuse or recycle the thicker bags.
“There was a sudden increase in the number of much thicker plastic bags,” Deehan, who campaigned for the new law, told KABC-TV.
“Grocery stores felt like they met the definition of a reusable plastic bag, but what we found is that they actually don’t reuse them at all.”
In 2004, Californians threw away an average of eight pounds of plastic each year, a figure that increased to eleven pounds per year in 2021, a state study concluded.
The law “clearly needed a redo,” Jenn Engstrom of the California Public Interest Research Group told the Associated Press.
“Plastic bags create pollution in our environment and break down into microplastics that contaminate our drinking water and threaten our health,” he explained.
“With the Governor’s signature, California has finally banned plastic bags at grocery checkouts once and for all.”
The law also redefined what can be considered a recyclable bag.
Gavin Newsom introduced the first plastic bag ban in the United States when he was mayor of San Francisco in 2007.
Starting in 2028, only bags made from 50 percent or more recycled materials can be classified as recyclable.
Newsom has a long history of fighting the use of plastic bags, having introduced the first plastic bag ban in the United States in 2007 while mayor of San Francisco.
Now hundreds of cities in 28 states have their own plastic bag bans.
Some form of statewide plastic bag ban currently exists in twelve states, including New York.
The UK passed a law forcing supermarkets to charge for plastic bags in 2015, leading to a 98 per cent reduction in their use according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Stores often face backlash when they modify packaging to reduce plastic use.
Earlier this year, Costco began selling its $4.99 rotisserie chickens in soft plastic bags instead of traditional hard plastic containers at its U.S. locations.
The redesign uses 75 percent less plastic and reduces the use of 17 million pounds of resin annually, according to Costco.
But shoppers were quick to complain that the new design makes a mess in strollers, cars and refrigerators by allowing meat juices to escape.
