BOSTON — Byproducts of a trip to the market and convenience store, plastic bags get a bad rap from environmentalists as wasteful consumables that litter oceans, parks and beaches and take hundreds of years to break down.
Voters in at least 160 cities and towns in Massachusetts, including Gloucester, Manchester, Newburyport and Marblehead, have banned the bags or restricted their use.
Others are considering limits, including lawmakers on Beacon Hill, who have revived a push for a statewide ban.
The state Senate voted 38-2 Thursday to approve a bill that will ban single use plastic bags and require retailers to charge customers 10 cents for a paper bag, among other initiatives to reduce plastic waste.
Supporters of the ban say single-use plastic bags clog the waste stream and litter oceans, parks and beaches.
“They may sit in a landfill. They may be incinerated, both of which release microplastics and greenhouse gases back into the environment,” Sen. Becca Rausch, a Newton Democrat, the bill’s primary sponsor, said in remarks ahead of the bill’s passage. They probably won’t be recycled because less than 10% of plastics are actually recycled in the United States. And plastics can persist in the environment for decades to centuries to an entire millennium.”
Members of the Senate’s Republican minority voted against the bill, arguing that a single use plastic ban will hurt the state’s small businesses while doing little to reduce pollution.
“This is going to cost consumers more, in a state that already has an incredibly high cost of living and while we’re trying to increase affordability,” Sen. Peter Durant, R-Spencer, said in remarks on Thursday. “I think this becomes too much, too much for us to bear. There are still solutions we can take to implement moving forward, but we have to look at the cost-benefit ratio.”
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, one of two Republicans who voted for the bill, filed an amendment that would have removed the paper bag fee from the bill, but it was rejected by the Democratic majority.
“If we are going to, rightfully, ban plastic bags, then we should not be dictatorial about how the market responds to the consequences,” the Gloucester Republican said.
Lawmakers withdrew a proposed amendment that would have banned plastic liquor “nips” following pushback from the state’s package store owners who argued it would hurt business and do too little to reduce plastic pollution.
Efforts to phase out the bags are opposed by the plastics and paper industries, as well as some retail groups, who call the restrictions unnecessary and costly.
Beacon Hill has wrestled with the issue for years. Attempts at a statewide ban have faltered amid industry pressure.
In 2019, a similar proposal fell apart after a legislative committee, deliberating behind closed doors, stripped the fee and added a “preemption” clause that would effectively override local plastic bag bans, many of them voter-approved.
“What we’re really trying to do is encourage reuse,” said Janet Domenitz, executive director of MassPIRG, said Thursday. “So the ban on single use plastics gets rid of the most deleterious material. The fee on paper is a way to incentivize people bring your own bag.”
Then-Gov. Charlie Baker suspended local plastic bag bans in 2020 and banned the use of reusable bags as part of a raft of measures to stop spread of COVID-19. The state rescinded those limits a year later after it proceeded with reopening plans, citing research that the virus doesn’t survive well on plastic surfaces.
Nationwide, Americans throw away some 100 billion plastic bags a year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which says the average bag takes up to 1,000 years to break down. Most bags are used an average of 12 minutes.
The bill now moves to the House of Representatives, which must approve it before sending it to Gov. Maura Healey’s desk for consideration.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com