What lives for only 12 minutes but sticks around for 1,000 years?
Nothing lasts forever – except probably plastic bags.
That’s why California signed a historic law banning all single-use plastic bags at grocery stores, convenience stores, and other retailers. The bill will take full effect on January 1, 2026.
According to the California Legislature, plastic bags have an average lifespan of just 12 minutes but do not degrade for the next 1,000 years.
With a population of nearly 40 million, this new state law—and this movement—will significantly improve sealife and California’s rivers, lakes, and streams.
This law corrects mistakes in California's landmark 2014 plastic bag ban, which contained loopholes that allowed grocers to offer thicker plastic bags to customers for a charge of $0.10. The idea was supposed to be that the customer would reuse a thicker bag. Instead, customers continued using their grocery bags once and throwing them away.
As frustrating as it was, it’s proven a good case study for other states and municipalities on how to write a law that can’t be so easily exploited.
So far, twelve states have passed laws restricting plastic bag use, and hundreds of municipalities in 28 states also restrict plastic bag use in some way.
This is a big win for marine life – and it might just be the impetus that like-minded states need to implement this essential common-sense measure into law. Plastic bags litter the environment, degrade into microplastics, contaminate drinking water, become “food” for unsuspecting marine life, and are a massive source of easily preventable pollution.
For decades, and even today, the big oil companies have misled consumers into believing these plastics and plastic bags can be recycled when the truth is that recycling options are very limited.
The best choice will always be to choose as few single-use plastics as possible.
Ocean plastic is a significant long-term environmental problem, but it can be solved if we approach it from every angle. The end of plastic grocery bags across California is a big step toward ending single-use consumption.
When plastic bags are recycled the only product they've come up with are those soft-plastic Nantucket lawn chairs, and space is limited on Nantucket for our nation's recycled single-use bags.