NY’s plastic bag ban survives lawsuit

NY’s plastic bag ban survives lawsuit

Wearing a mask to protect himself from exposure to coronavirus, Nahid Chowdury prepares a customer's groceries in plastic bags before weighing them while working in the Al-Baraka grocery, which specializes in Bangladeshi and Indian foods, as well as American products, Thursday, March 26, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Chowdury said business has been slow because the store had to cut back on it's hours uring the current viral pandemic. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York’s never-enforced ban on single-use plastic bags has survived a lawsuit lodged by a plastic bag manufacturer and convenience store owners, but a state judge ruled Thursday that state regulators went too far by allowing stores to hand out thicker plastic bags one day. A law in New York went into effect March 1 that bans many types of businesses from using the thin plastic bags that have been clogging up landfills, getting tangled in trees and accumulating in lakes and seas. But the Department of Environmental Conservation agreed to delay enforcement of the law as the agency fought to get state courts to toss out the lawsuit. State Supreme Court Justice Gerald Connolly ordered New York in a decision released Thursday to rules allowing thicker plastic bags.

 

(Photo: AP Images)