Thin, single-use plastic bags were first developed in the 1960s in Europe. They appeared in U.S. grocery stores only in 1979, edging out paper bags because they were significantly cheaper for grocers.

The state’s ban on thin single-use bags had a loophole that let grocers sell shoppers thicker plastic bags for a small fee: just 10 cents. In theory, the heavier bags were reusable. But in ...

The new bag policy is in response to an uptick in retail theft across the state, an issue so problematic that state officials ...

Doesn’t everyone put items from the produce department of a grocery store into thin plastic bags? (“A Bag Ban to Fix California’s Bag Ban?” Review & Outlook, Aug. 17). The contents of my ...

California’s single-use plastic shopping bag ban went into effect in 2016, but plastic bag waste increased 47% to 231,072 tons by 2022 as stores shifted to selling much heavier, thicker plastic ...

The report blames this on a “loophole” in the law. When the ban on thin, single-use plastic bags went into effect, shoppers were left with a choice between paper bags or heavier, multiuse ...

Exceptions include plastic bags for packaging meat, seafood, produce, bulk items and frozen foods. The thin, single-use plastic bags ubiquitous at grocery and convenience stores throughout the ...

Notable exceptions to the trend are France, Italy and—from 2022 onward—Germany, which have banned certain types of thin plastic bags and require them to be replaced with compostable ones—a ...

Oregon’s statewide plastic bag ban, the third in the country, prohibits stores from offering bags made of thin plastic film to customers at checkout. Thicker plastic bags that are intended to be ...

Blosser says while local Citadel and College of Charleston studies showed thin plastic bags appearing in litter going down, they were simply replaced by thick plastic bags and explosively.

It's been six years since the ubiquitous static cling of thin plastic bags that often broke under the burden of heavy groceries greeted shoppers at the end of the checkout line.