Nassau must stop needless checkout bag pollution!

Nassau County Executive Curran, Presiding Officer Nicollelo, and Minority Caucus Leader Abrahams

Though plastic bags are banned in NY State as of March 1, 2020, that alone doesn’t stop pollution.
It just switches everyone to another throwaway bag. Counties have the power to eliminate ALL needless checkout bag pollution and charge a mandatory minimum fee on all checkout bags received, which is shown to reduce all checkout bag pollution by 80%.

Unless we move to a Bring Your Own Bag culture, there will still be 23 billion single use checkout bags of another material used every year in New York, unnecessarily polluting through their creation and disposal. Nassau County can do something to avoid this:

  • A shift to much more expensive paper bags will raise the price of goods to all shoppers, whether they take a bag or not to cover that increase
  • Paper bags stress our environment, just like plastic (toxins, chopping down trees, carbon emissions for manufacture and transport), and use should be discouraged with a fee on all checkout bags
  • Switching to another "disposable" bag of another material is not environmentally friendly when they also end up in our environment
  • So- called “biodegradable” and ”compostable” plastic doesn’t break down in nature, requiring chemicals and extra costs to do so
  • California's bag ban was halted for a decade as discriminatory -we have yet to hear if the NY Bag industry will also sue to stop it
  • Good policy encourages everyone to bring their own bags everywhere to eliminate ALL CHECKOUT BAG POLLUTION


A fee on ALL other checkout bags is proven to reduce ALL use by 75-80% because you remember to Bring Your Own Bag. Support a 5 cent fee on all bags in your county to move NY to a Bring Your Own Bag culture and eliminate this needless pollution.


Sponsored by
2016logosq
All Our Energy

To: Nassau County Executive Curran, Presiding Officer Nicollelo, and Minority Caucus Leader Abrahams
From: [Your Name]

Stop Harming The Environment: Address Needless Checkout Bag Pollution & Waste!
I ask you to create a Reusable Bag Ordinance that places a fee on all checkout bags. It could also require bags received at checkout have a minimum recycled content or be fully recycled material.
Long Beach and Suffolk County have addressed all bags, proving we can eliminate up to 80% of this waste everywhere else; reducing associated merchant, taxpayer, and environmental costs
Though plastic bags are banned in NY State as of March 1, 2020, unless we move to a Bring Your Own Bag culture, there will still be 23 billion single use checkout bags of another material used every year in New York, unnecessarily polluting through their creation and disposal. Paper bags require cutting down trees and can cost 10x more than plastic, raising prices on EVERY item we buy. A fee on all bags taken at checkout reduces their use and all those problems.
To protect our waters & environment, I pledge to bring my own reusable bags!