SACRAMENTO -- Grocery clerks in the city of Sacramento will stop asking “paper or plastic?” on Friday. Instead, they’ll ask customers if they’d like to buy some bags.
This week, the city will join 145 other communities in California in banning single-use plastic bags from grocery stores, large pharmacies and other retailers, the Sacramento Bee reported. The city ordinance takes effect even as a statewide ban on the bags remains on hold pending the outcome of a referendum in November.
“A lot of folks still think (the bag ban isn’t) happening because the state law is coming up on the ballot,” Erin Treadwell, spokeswoman for the city’s Recycling and Solid Waste Division, told the newspaper. But it is.
To prepare for the change, city staff members have met with about 100 retailers and contacted hundreds more to answer their questions and urge them to prepare, she said.
After Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill last year outlawing the bags statewide starting in July, manufacturers put up $3 million to gather signatures and place a referendum on the November ballot asking voters to overturn the law.
In response, the Sacramento City Council unanimously approved a ban on single-use plastic bags in late March that will eliminate the bags from checkout counters at all grocery stores, large pharmacies and convenience stores within the city limit, the newspaper reported.
Click here for the complete newspaper report.
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