(Los Angeles) California has extended its ban on plastic bags in stores in the US state that cultivates its progressive image, the newspaper reported this weekend. Los Angeles Times.
The wealthiest state in the United States, California, home to Hollywood and tech giants, banned single-use plastic bags in 2014, but allowed stores to offer customers plastic bags strong enough to be reused.
But, as environmentalists predicted, most of these bags are rarely reused or recycled.
From now on, all plastic bags will be banned, according to a law promulgated Sunday by California Governor Gavin Newsom, once considered a possible Democratic candidate in the November presidential election.
PHOTO DERRICK TUSKAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Gavin Newsom, Governor of California
This new law, which will come into force in January 2026 according to the Los Angeles Timesonly concerns shopping bags, not the plastic used by companies for packaging.
The enactment of the California law came on the day that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) hailed the beginnings of “convergence” in negotiations for the first global treaty to combat the scourge of plastic.
Delegations from 175 countries agreed in 2022 to finalize such a treaty by the end of 2024.
From the mass production of this material in the 1950s to 2019, 140 million tonnes have already accumulated in aquatic environments, according to a 2023 study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).