New York Bans Plastic Bags On Earth Day

KINGSTON, NY — New York state has banned the sale of single-use plastic bags. Officials and activists consider the ban, which will start in March 2020, as a significant step to reduce pollution and protect fish and wildlife.

They celebrated the move with a symbolic bill-signing at the Hudson River Maritime Museum on Monday.

"The average length of use is 12 minutes, but they live longer than anyone in this room," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in his remarks in Kingston. "Americans use 160 billion per year. It takes 12 million barrels of oil to make these bags. New Yorkers use 23 billion every year - believe it or not. You see them everywhere. You will see them hanging from trees like bizarre Christmas ornaments. You will see them blowing down the street. You will see them in the beautiful Hudson River floating up and down. Everywhere you go you see them."

Half of single-use plastic bags end up as litter, nationwide studies show. They do not degrade and often they harm birds or wildlife that ingest the plastic

In addition to preventing plastic-bag litter across the environment, the ban will also help reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with plastic bag production and disposal, from petroleum used to produce the bags to emissions from the transportation of bags to landfills, state officials said.

Cuomo pointed out that the modern environmental movement started in the Hudson Valley, when activists fought a plan to mount giant turbines on the side of Storm King Mountain to generate electric power by sucking up water and then dropping it back into the river.

“At our annual Riverkeeper Sweep, volunteers remove tons of plastics, including single-use bags from New York’s shorelines,” said Paul Gallay, president of Riverkeeper, which was formed out of the fight to clean up the river that started in the 1960s. “Plastic pollution is a regional scourge as well as a global emergency. Thanks to Governor Cuomo and the legislature for banning the plastic bag in New York and continued investments in clean water infrastructure.”