Not yet free of plastic bags

When Lawrence resident and Cedarhurst business owner Andrew Kahn vacationed in Great Barrington, Mass., recently, he saw a sign in a store window that read, “Ban single-use plastic bags.”
Kahn said this made him think about his role in society, and how he could shrink his carbon footprint and reduce waste he generates. When he shops at local grocery stores, Kahn said, he notices an “abundance” of plastic bags, and would like to see more reusable ones.
“I can’t imagine how many plastic bags are used in one day,” he said. “When I was visiting Massachusetts, I saw so many trees, and the air is fresh. They seem to take such great care in the environment there. Seeing the sign made me think that my community should be doing more to recycle them.”
According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Americans throw away more than 100 billion plastic bags a year, and fewer than 1 percent are recycled. Recycling reduces waste that otherwise ends up polluting land and waterways or piling up in landfills. It also protects animals from ingesting the bags or being strangled by them. And recycled plastic can also be used to make other products.
Six years ago, the State Legislature passed the Plastic Bag Reduction, Reuse and Recycling Act. Alexander Grannis, the commissioner of the DEC at the time, wrote a letter to retail outlets explaining the law.
“The law, as adopted, requires stores with 10,000 square feet or more of retail space and chains of five or more stores with greater than 5,000 square feet of retail space which provide plastic bags to [their] customers … to do the following,” Grannis wrote. “Establish an at-store plastic bag recycling program. Ensure that collected plastic bags are recycled. Label all plastic bags. Keep records on their program. Sell reusable bags.”
This March, the state revised the law to include dry-cleaning and newspaper bags as well as plastic shrink-wrap.