Bag the loopholes, say N.Y. environmentalists

Advocates worry size exemptions will still allow plastic sacks, despite upcoming ban

Plastic shopping bags like this are set to be banned, with some exceptions, on March 1, 2020.
Plastic shopping bags like this are set to be banned, with some exceptions, on March 1, 2020.Phoebe Sheehan/Times Union

ALBANY – With the start of a plastic bag ban just a month away, a group of environmentalists on Friday urged the state Department of Environmental Conservation to tighten up the final regulations against possible loopholes including one that might allow retailers to keep handing out bags as long as they are of a certain thickness.

“Those are the three concerns with the regulations, but my major message is that New Yorkers are ready for this,” said Judith Enck, a former regional EPA Administrator and founder of Beyond Plastics, a group seeking to reduce the use of wasteful plastics in packaging and other uses.

“People will support it and the time has come to stop using so much single-use plastic packaging in New York.”

She was joined by other advocates as well as Albany Democratic Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy at the state Capitol to urge the changes. They also sent a letter to DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos.

Plastic Ban Letter by rkarlin on Scribd

One of the biggest concerns centers on what they say is a loophole that doesn’t specifically prevent the use of plastic bags that are thicker than 10 mils. A mil is a thousandth of an inch and most supermarket bags are less than 2 mils. Ten mil bags aren’t in use but the advocates fear the law may prompt manufacturers to make and sell them for use.

Additionally, the new law doesn’t exempt carryout restaurants that often put their orders in plastic bags.

The new law also allows stores to seek case-by-case exemptions from the ban.

The public comment period for the rules enacting the ban, which lawmakers passed last year, ends on Monday.

Enck added that reusable bags, of canvas or woven material, are already in wide use and shoppers will quickly adapt to the lack of plastic bags.

Environmentalists have long decried the heavy use of plastic bags which consume fossil fuels for manufacturing and which create litter and pollution in waterways and other places where they have been known to kill wildlife that eats or becomes entangled in them.

“Reusable bags is mainstream,” she said. “Half of all Americans use reusable bags when they go grocery shopping, one-third use them almost all the time.” • 518-454-5758 • @RickKarlinTU