Beginning Oct. 1, 2021, a statewide ban of single-use plastic bags will go into effect in Washington. Here’s what you need to know.<\/p>\n
People in Washington use two billion single-use plastic bags every year, according to the Department of Ecology. Those single-use plastic bags are a major contaminant of Washington’s rivers, streams, roads and basically everything else, according to the department.<\/p>\n
The single-use bags contain toxic chemicals that are released into the environment if not properly disposed. Due to their thin construction, single-use bags are difficult to recycle, meaning many end up in landfills or worse.<\/p>\n
In order to combat the negative effects of this pollution on the environment, the Legislature decided to ban single use plastic bags in 2020. COVID-19 disrupted the supply chain for alternative bags, so Gov. Jay Inslee delayed the implementation of the ban until Oct. 1, 2021.<\/p>\n
So starting Oct. 1, restaurants, grocery stores and other retailers will no longer be allowed to use single-use bags, according to the Department of Ecology. Instead, businesses will be required to charge an 8-cent fee for reusable plastic bags and recycled paper bags. Another option for businesses is to use brown or green “compostable” plastic bags for an optional fee.<\/p>\n
The reusable plastic bags must be at least 2.25 millimeters or about ninety-thousandths of an inch thick, and must be made of at least 20% recycled materials. The paper bags must be made of at least 40% recycled material.<\/p>\n
The 8-cent fee won’t be applied to customers who use food vouchers such as SNAP and WIC. The ban does not apply to single-use plastic bags used for produce, baked or prepared foods, flowers, plants or meat, according to the Department of Ecology.<\/p>\n
Shoppers can also bring their own reusable grocery bags instead of using a paper or reusable plastic bag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shoppers will have the choice to pay for a reusable plastic or recycled paper bag. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1016,"featured_media":51938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4,24],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-51937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","category-northwest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51937"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1016"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51937"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=51937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}