New Jersey lawmakers are considering banning both single-use plastic bags and paper bags – restrictions that could come with a requirement for grocery stores in the Garden State to provide customers with reusable bags for up to two months after the prohibitions take effect.

New Jersey is moving closer to banning plastic bags — and paper ones, too. And Styrofoam containers. https://t.co/9IJ2lmuO0W

— The Philadelphia Inquirer (@PhillyInquirer) December 6, 2019

If enacted, the regulations could help stimulate sales of branded totes and related logoed reusable bags in New Jersey – a potential boon for promotional products distributors. Grocery stores in particular could become prospects. If they’re compelled to distribute reusables, then the bags should be branded to encourage loyalty, keep the store top of mind and advertise the business wherever the customer uses the bag.

More broadly, distributors could pitch reusable bags as a wise investment to a spectrum of New Jersey businesses with in-state customers/audiences. Those end-users will need reusable bags to shop in their state, and businesses and other organizations would provide value by giving such bags to them, all while promoting their organizations via a cost-effective promo product, distributors could make the case.

Still, before any of that can happen, New Jersey legislators will have to pass the statewide ban. It would be the strictest of its kind in the nation, as it would also apply to paper bags, a restriction not on the books on a state level elsewhere in the U.S., according to press reports. The regulations would also ultimately outlaw Styrofoam cups and food containers.

The New Jersey legislature’s Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee voted in favor of the banning bill on Thursday. However, the full legislature will ultimately have to approve it – with the governor signing off – for the restrictions to become law.

As The Philadelphia Inquirer reported, the bill has detractors. They include industry groups like the Chemistry Council of New Jersey, which said the proposed ban on Styrofoam cups and containers would result in heavy cost burdens on businesses. This is “substituting one piece of litter for another,” Dennis Hart, a lobbyist for the group, told the Inquirer.

Elsewhere, Philadelphia is moving forward with a ban on types of plastic bags, but there is controversy over the legislation. Meanwhile, New York’s already-approved statewide single-use plastic bag ban is scheduled to go into effect on March 1, but debate over particulars is rearing.

In recent years, momentum behind bans on single-use plastic bags has been growing at the local and statewide levels. Advocates want the bags outlawed because, they say, the disposables cause pollution and litter, and are a threat to wildlife, especially aquatic life when they end up in rivers, streams and oceans. Statewide prohibitions on single-use plastic bags have been voted into law in Vermont, Maine, California, New York and Hawaii.

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