On March 1, single-use plastic bags will be banned in New York State. The average household uses about 15-hundred of these bags a year, mostly for groceries. That’s 23-billion statewide, which adds up to a lot of plastic ending up in landfills & the environment.
Plastic bags for deli, take-out food, dry cleaning, and prescriptions will be exempt under the law, and many grocery chains will offer paper bags for groceries, for a fee. New York State is encouraging shoppers to begin using reusable bags.
We talk with DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos about the ban, the billions of dollars in the Governor Cuomo’s budget to combat climate change, and what New York State is doing to address overcrowding in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks.