New Jersey passes ban on both plastic and paper single-use bags at large grocery stores

[mountaineer]

New Jersey passes ban on both plastic and paper single-use bags at large grocery stores
    By Kim Jarrett | The Center Square
6 min ago


New Jersey lawmakers passed the strongest ban on single-use containers in the nation on Thursday.

The bill bans single-use plastic bags and single-use paper bags at grocery stores that are 2,500 square feet or larger. Polystyrene containers and plastic straws are also banned but consumers could ask for a plastic straw.

New Jersey is the first state in the country to ban single-use paper bags.

The ban takes effect in 18 months and imposes a $1,000 fine for a second offense and up to $5,000 in fines for third and subsequent violations.  ...   Full story

 

[Gefn]

Thanks @mountaineer

Didn’t know this. Nightly news is on in about an hour.

Someday I’ll be asking you all about other states to move to, I guess. Or I’ll find my own island somewhere

[PeteS in CA]

Are reusable bags banned/restricted currently due to Covid? Single-use plastics are banned here, but paper bags have a 10-cent per-bag charge. Then with the 'vid reusables could not be brought into stores at all for a while, and more recently they can be brought in but customers are the only ones allowed to pack them. It's moronic.

[roamer_1]

I am alright with canvas totes. I use em already because they are better for packing.

But brown paper bags? Single use? Am I the only one here that saves brown paper?

[truth_seeker]

I am alright with canvas totes. I use em already because they are better for packing.

But brown paper bags? Single use? Am I the only one here that saves brown paper?

A few years ago, I learned of a biodegradable "plastic" bag, made with soy I believe.

[PeteS in CA]

...
But brown paper bags? Single use? Am I the only one here that saves brown paper?

We've saved and reused large paper bags for decades, as did my parents when I was growing up.

[Fishrrman]

My sister bought a box of 1,000 plastic bags at the local Costco.

Since the supermarkets here don't have plastic bags now, I bring one or two of my along when I go.
Works for me.

I wonder if the customers "bringing in their own bags" is going to result in arrests before too much longer?

[roamer_1]

A few years ago, I learned of a biodegradable "plastic" bag, made with soy I believe.

I ball up them plastic ones into a loose knot and pitch them together in a kitchen garbage bag. One of these days it will get full enough to drop off to recycling... That's really not unreasonable to me, but then, I do not get them bags very often.

But brown paper is redneck gold. Right up there with duct tape, bushel baskets, and gunny sacks. I prefer Rosaurs when I go to town, partly because they have great brown bags (with handles).

Bust it open on the counter to clean and salt a chicken. Anything you haul over to someone else's house (like a dinner caring for someone that's sick or hurt), it's bound to be delivered in a brown paper bag... and on it goes.

[roamer_1]

We've saved and reused large paper bags for decades, as did my parents when I was growing up.

YEP. Every one of my school books wound up in a brown paper cover... I have freezer wrapped in brown paper painted in wax... Painting a room? cover close to the wall with brown paper and throw a tarp over the rest... Their uses are infinite.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I am alright with canvas totes. I use em already because they are better for packing.

But brown paper bags? Single use? Am I the only one here that saves brown paper?

That's too rough on the bottom.

I prefer a roll instead.

[roamer_1]

That's too rough on the bottom.

I prefer a roll instead.

You've gone too far from the corn crib.

[Smokin Joe]

I am alright with canvas totes. I use em already because they are better for packing.

But brown paper bags? Single use? Am I the only one here that saves brown paper?

Little in our house is single use. Bags, usually plastic from the grocery store are used for everything from simply hauling stuff around, to small waste basket liners, to policing up dog poop.

Don't often see the paper bags here.

[roamer_1]

Little in our house is single use. Bags, usually plastic from the grocery store are used for everything from simply hauling stuff around, to small waste basket liners, to policing up dog poop.

Don't often see the paper bags here.

I get brown paper bags for frozen stuff, because it keeps it better in the pickup getting em home. The plastic I have little use for, other than lining the bathroom garbage can, which hardly ever happens. Too flimsy for most things. Like I said, the canvas totes are what I mainly do, so I hardly get them plastic bags at all.

As for dog poop, Chewy poop is light enough that the grass actually lifts it up as it grows... right into the gaping maw of the garden tractor, where it is disintegrated... It's a feature. 

It's the one type of poop I don't generally have to manage.

[Smokin Joe]

I get brown paper bags for frozen stuff, because it keeps it better in the pickup getting em home. The plastic I have little use for, other than lining the bathroom garbage can, which hardly ever happens. Too flimsy for most things. Like I said, the canvas totes are what I mainly do, so I hardly get them plastic bags at all.

As for dog poop, Chewy poop is light enough that the grass actually lifts it up as it grows... right into the gaping maw of the garden tractor, where it is disintegrated... It's a feature. 

It's the one type of poop I don't generally have to manage.

It's one thing to ride over it, another with a walk-behind mower....

[mountaineer]

A potential problem with those reusable cloth bags is that shoppers might buy meat and, without being aware of it, the meat juices seep out into the cloth and, ultimately, onto other food products. Bacteria run amok, and then you have a food safety problem. That's why most grocery store baggers will put your package of chuck roast or chicken in a separate plastic bag. At least, in places not NJ.

[Gefn]

A potential problem with those reusable cloth bags is that shoppers might buy meat and, without being aware of it, the meat juices seep out into the cloth and, ultimately, onto other food products. Bacteria run amok, and then you have a food safety problem. That's why most grocery store baggers will put your package of chuck roast or chicken in a separate plastic bag. At least, in places not NJ.

No they put meat separate from groceries. And the eggs go in a separate bag Incase they break too.

[The_Reader_David]

So, in the middle of a pandemic, they are requiring reusable bags, which can harbor pathogens between uses.  Places on the Left coast that had banned single-use plastic bags years ago started allowing them again as an anti-COVID-19 measure.  Just how stupid are New Jersey legislators?

[sneakypete]

I ball up them plastic ones into a loose knot and pitch them together in a kitchen garbage bag. One of these days it will get full enough to drop off to recycling... That's really not unreasonable to me, but then, I do not get them bags very often.

@roamer_1

I like to save and use them for packing when I sell stuff on ebay.

[Fishrrman]

David wonders:
"Just how stupid are New Jersey legislators?"

Most of them are democrat-communists.
Does that answer your question...?

[The_Reader_David]

David wonders:
"Just how stupid are New Jersey legislators?"

Most of them are democrat-communists.
Does that answer your question...?

No.  The folks on the Left Coast who lifted the bans on single-use plastic bags in the face of the pandemic are democrat-communists, too.
The NJ legislature must have an unusually stupid contingent of democrat-communists.

[roamer_1]

A potential problem with those reusable cloth bags is that shoppers might buy meat and, without being aware of it, the meat juices seep out into the cloth and, ultimately, onto other food products. Bacteria run amok, and then you have a food safety problem.

I don't know how it's possible, all those hundreds of years of folks carrying their possibles in a poke sack.