Distributors, start spreading the news: New York has become the second state to pass a ban on single-use plastic bags. The legislation could benefit promo firms that sell into the Empire State.

The ban – which would go into place March 1, 2020, – passed as part of the state's 2020 budget deal, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state legislative leaders said they had agreed to on Sunday, CNN reported.

The legislation banning plastic bags at supermarkets and retail businesses would allow individual counties and cities to opt in to a program that would implement a 5-cent fee on paper bags, according to the governor’s office. The New York Environmental Protection Fund would receive 60% of the revenue generated by that fee, and the remaining 40% would support "local programs to buy reusable bags for low and fixed income consumers.” California, which enacted the first statewide single-use plastic bag ban in 2016, has a similar ban-fee model.

However, WCBS reports that there would be some exemptions to the New York ban: plastic bags for picking up dry cleaning, plastic carryout bags for food and plastic bags for packing fruits and vegetables at the grocery store.

While environmentalist groups have hailed the legislation as a huge victory, the American Progressive Bag Alliance, which represents plastic-bag manufacturers, called it a “last-ditch effort for a press release,” according to The Wall Street Journal. “The New York state budget provision that bans and taxes carryout bags not only misses the mark on sustainability by forcing consumers to use bags that are worse for the environment, it imposes a massive new cost on anyone doing retail business in the state of New York,” said Matt Seaholm, executive director of the American Progressive Bag Alliance.

A prohibition on plastic bags poses potential opportunity for promotional products firms, as companies look to reusable bags to serve their customers. At least 91 bills have been introduced in the U.S. this year regarding plastic bags, mostly to ban or place a fee on them, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The state of California and the cities of Boston, Chicago and Seattle are among those that have already enacted bans of single-use bags. Hawaii effectively has a statewide ban because of county-level regulations throughout the island state. Washington, Oregon, New York and New Jersey are among the other states considering state-level action to clampdown on single-use plastic bags.

The plastic ban movement has also reached internationally. Last week, the European Parliament, effectively the legislature governing the 28 EU nations, voted overwhelmingly to institute a prohibition on plastics, effective 2021. Even several churches across the U.S. and abroad have also joined the movement, encouraging parishioners to give up plastic for Lent.  

The world produces more than 300 million tons of plastic each year, according to Statista, and scientists estimate that up to 91% of plastic is never recycled, polluting the environment and threatening wildlife.

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