Newsom Bans Plastic Bags in California Stores, After 10-Year Single-use Plastic Bag Ban Fails

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill into law on Sunday that bans the use of plastic bags at grocery stores — after the state’s ten-year-old ban on single-use plastic bags was shown to have made plastic pollution even worse.

Newsom’s office buried the news in a press release on Sunday in which it failed to identify the legislation as a plastic bag ban. The press release simply identified the law as “SB 1053 by Senator Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) – Solid waste: recycled paper bags: standards: carryout bag prohibition.” It was one of dozens of bills Newsom signed.

But the legislation will bring major changes to grocery stores throughout the state when it takes effect on January 1, 2026. Shoppers will no longer be able to choose between paper and plastic bags at the checkout counter. The only plastic bags permitted will be those provided within a grocery store — for example, to wrap perishable meat products.

As Breitbart News has noted, California Democrats previously tried to cut down on plastic bag waste in California by passing a ban in 2014. Instead of reducing plastic bag waste, the ban on thin, single-use plastic bags caused plastic waste per person in the state to rise by nearly 50%. Customers simply did not want to reuse the thicker plastic bags allowed under the law; they discarded them or tried to recycle them, which simply added to overall plastic waste.

Instead of learning a hard lesson in the futility of government overreach, and unintended consequences, Newsom and the Democrats have simply passed another plastic bag ban — one that will try to eliminate carryout bags altogether.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.