May 4, 2022
By Samantha Mayer
Staff Writer
Today marks a big change for New Jersey shoppers, as businesses are no longer allowed to hand out single-use plastic bags, paper bags, plastic straws and polystyrene food containers.
Gov. Phil Murphy signed this bill into law on Nov. 4, 2020, but it did not take effect until today.
Science teacher and the Environmental Club Advisor Mr. Manzella said she supports the legislation.
“Banning stores from providing single-use bags to their customers is a positive step in trying to change our culture from being heavily reliant on one-time-use plastics,” Manzella said. “With New Jersey having a large population and a lot of businesses, this can have a huge impact.”
“I think it was the right call since there are so many plastic bags, and they can be found littered in the streets and parks.”
While she agrees with the ban, Manzella said the government should have done more over the past year-and-a-half to help customers develop the habit of bringing reusable bags with them when they go shopping.
“It is a good idea to start with having a small sales tax charged to using disposable plastic items at stores or restaurants or to provide incentives to people who avoid using disposable plastics and then eventually phase out the use of these items completely through banning them,” Manzella said.
Manzella said prior to the pandemic, she used reusable bags when grocery shopping. However, during the Covid-19 lockdown, she started relying on single-use plastic bags.
“I fell out of the habit of using reusable bags as often and started accumulating more plastic bags. However, now that most restrictions are lifted and I am going into stores more, I am trying to get back on track with bringing my own reusable bags shopping,” Manzella said. “For me, this ban is coming into effect at a good time because it is forcing me to get back into my pre-Covid environmentally friendly habits.”
She said even though single-use plastic bags are recyclable, many towns and cities do not accept plastic bags in their recycling pickup because machinery in recycling facilities cannot sort them, and then they jam the equipment. Therefore, people have to drop off plastic bags at a specific location, such as a store that accepts plastic bags for recycling.
Manzella said some people have found ways to reuse the plastic bags they collect, but the bags tend not hold up through too many uses and wind up ripping or tearing.
“At the end of their use, the bags often wind up as litter or disposed of in the garbage as opposed to recycled,” Manzella said. “They take a long time to break down and can have an adverse effect on wildlife when they enter the environment, or they can clog drainage.”
Sophomore Sophia Turano, who is a member of the Environmental Club, said she is happy New Jersey’s government is finally taking action to curb the pollution caused by plastic bags.
“I think it was the right call since there are so many plastic bags, and they can be found littered in
the streets and parks,” Turano said.
She said the new law is necessary because plastic bags take 1,000 years to degrade in landfills, and they never fully decompose. They break down into microplastics and continue to pollute the environment.
She said because so many people use plastic bags daily to carry clothing, food and other items, customers will have to find a different way to carry their purchases.
“I’ll be using a reusable bag after the ban goes into effect to help eliminate waste from single-use bags,” Turano said.
Senior Genevieve Pello, who is also a member of the Environmental Club, said the ban is an excellent idea but can affect people negatively because they will have to buy reusable bags if they do not come with their own.
She said at first, people will forget to bring a reusable bag, but over time, they will remember to bring reusable bags when they go shopping.
“There are many problems with the use of plastic bags [including] how they are discarded as well as how many are needed,” Pello said. “To make sure one doesn’t rip if a heavy item or many items are put in the bag, people might double or triple the layering by bagging the bags.”
Pello said customers who repurpose their plastic bags for garbage bags, especially for picking up their pets’ feces and transporting fragile objects, will no longer be able to do so. Nonetheless, Pello said the ban is worthwhile because bags will no longer be floating around in towns, and they won’t get caught on trees or pose a risk to animals.
“Banning single-use plastic bags is so important due to how often they’re discarded improperly and the harm they cause to sea life especially,” said Pello.
