Why Do Some People in New Jersey Suddenly Have Bags and Bags of Bags?

[Gefn]

A ban on single-use plastic and paper bags in grocery stores had an unintended effect: Delivery services switched to heavy, reusable sacks — lots of them.

Nicole Kramaritsch of Roxbury, N.J., has 46 bags just sitting in her garage. Brian Otto has 101 of them, so many that he’s considering sewing them into blackout curtains for his baby’s bedroom. (So far, that idea has gone nowhere.) Lili Mannuzza in Whippany has 74.

“I don’t know what to do with all these bags,” she said.

The mountains of bags are an unintended consequence of New Jersey’s strict new bag ban in supermarkets. It went into effect in May and prohibits not only plastic bags but paper bags as well. The well-intentioned law seeks to cut down on waste and single-use plastics, but for many people who rely on grocery delivery and curbside pickup services their orders now come in heavy-duty reusable shopping bags — lots and lots of them, week after week.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/climate/paper-plastic-bag-ban-new-jersey.html

[Smokin Joe]

Donate to charities, and you will eventually accumulate a pile of these tote bags as well. Like address labels (which I throw out by the pound) they can be a bother.

But I found a use for one of them, anyway, I put all the other tote bags in the largest one...

[Kamaji]

A ban on single-use plastic and paper bags in grocery stores had an unintended effect: Delivery services switched to heavy, reusable sacks — lots of them.



https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/climate/paper-plastic-bag-ban-new-jersey.html

WADR, it was not a "well-intentioned law" it was a obviously false law whose only purpose was virtue-signaling and preening by a small group of left-wing elitists.

[Smokin Joe]

WADR, it was not a "well-intentioned law" it was a obviously false law whose only purpose was virtue-signaling and preening by a small group of left-wing elitists.

I foresee a lot of dog poop left to lay....or people will have to go buy plastic bags for it.

[mountaineer]

We still use plastic grocery bags. When we accumulate a lot, we take them back to the grocery store to be recycled. It really shouldn't be that difficult, NJ.

[Kamaji]

I foresee a lot of dog poop left to lay....or people will have to go buy plastic bags for it.

Yup.  Plastic bags are sold for precisely that purpose, and those are most definitely single-use bags.  They're also sold at a premium over the cost of plastic grocery bags (taking into account the store's cost of acquiring them), so they're also a misallocation of scarce capital.