The state's plastic bag ban, which goes into effect May 4, won't solve all our environmental problems, but experts say it's certainly a good place to start.
reporting 380 billion plastic bags and wraps used each year in the U.S alone, will banning single-use bags at grocery stores in the fourth-smallest state even make a difference? NJ Advance Media recently posed that question to environmental and public health experts and their responses may encourage you to embrace the new legislation and future measures like it.
New Jersey’s law goes even further than the Golden State’s ban. While 10 other states — California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington — have passed some form of a single-use plastic ban, New Jersey’s bill is called the “trifecta” because it bans not only single-use carryout plastic bags, but paper bags and many styrofoam food containers, too. The law also makes plastic straws at restaurants available only upon request.
campaign. Part of the state Department of Environmental Protection, this 16-member council will monitor the implementation of the plastic bag ban and evaluate its success.The Garden State’s legislation doesn’t address other pollutants, like plastic bottles, for example. Pictured here, mounds of plastic bottles within plastic bags at Gaeta Recycling Co. Inc in Paterson.
Some of these microplastics “may be so small that we inhale them into our lungs through the air, we can ingest them in our food and in our water, and we can also eat them when we eat seafood,” Sullivan explained. “I understand it might be inconvenient to some people. But it’s a little thing we can do — out of the many things that we need to do — that can make a difference,” Davi said., which said climate change has already led to “some irreversible impacts as natural and human systems are pushed beyond their ability to adapt.
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