NY’s plastic bag ban goes into effect

NEW YORK - New York’s long-delayed ban on single-use plastic bags went into effect Monday.

The ban actually started March 1 but was delayed by a lawsuit and the coronavirus pandemic. According to state officials, New Yorkers use about 23 billion plastic bags every year.

“85 percent of those end up in landfills, they clog up our recycling machines, or they’re in our waterways, our streets, our trees,” said Basil Seggos, the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

But some small business owners say this is the wrong time to enforce the ban and want to postpone the ban on single-use plastic bags until next fall.

Many small businesses are already struggling to survive the economic impact of the pandemic, say that being forced to charge customers for a reusable cloth or paper bag could be crippling.