It’s been nearly a decade since the General Assembly first considered a ban on single-use plastic bags at supermarkets, drug stores and other retail businesses. But just as in 2013, the first year that legislation cracking down on the thin-film bags was proposed and went nowhere, bills in subsequent years have either gotten stuck in committee or won passage in one chamber but not the other. In the meantime, 10 other states, including five in the Northeast, have enacted statewide bans against the bags, which get snarled in trees and clog storm drains. Maine, Connecticut and Washington were the latest to join the list in the last few months.
So there was a palpable sense of frustration last week when the House Committee on Environment and Natural Resources heard the latest version of legislation that would require stores in Rhode Island to offer their customers only paper bags, or thicker reusable bags, instead of flimsy plastic ones. “We’re saying the same thing over and over again every year,” said Rep. Carol Hagan McEntee, the South Kingstown Democrat who, for the fifth year running, is the lead sponsor in the House of the Plastic Waste Reduction Act. With bans in effect in 17 cities and towns in Rhode Island, including Newport, Providence and Cranston, more than half the state’s population is already subject to restrictions on the types of bags they use in checkout lines.
In 2019, six years after Barrington became the first municipality to pass a ban, statewide legislation appeared poised to win passage. That came after then-Gov. Gina Raimondo convened a task force on the issue to seek common ground between business groups and environmental advocates. But while the Senate voted unanimously in favor of legislation introduced by President Dominick Ruggerio, the House version failed to get to the floor.