By Erin Hass, Director, ARPBA

Every time you step into a grocery store, you’re lucky to be faced with a hundred small choices. Cart or basket. Name-brand cereal or generic. Organic produce or conventional. All these decisions are part of the freedom of grocery shopping and represent what makes the experience unique to each consumer.

Unfortunately, in many states, that freedom doesn’t extend to the checkout line. State legislatures are stripping away consumer choice by banning plastic bags or taxing their use, mandating how shoppers must carry their groceries home.

Your time and money – it should be the customer’s decision.  Using a reusable bag should be a choice, not a command. Over the past decade, many militant environmental groups have pushed for mandates requiring reusable grocery bags. But these measures only work when consumers willingly buy in. Experience shows that when governments try to force certain behaviors, it can backfire.

In 2022, New Jersey joined a wave of states banning single-use plastic bags, aiming to minimize plastic consumption. Instead, research shows the policy had the opposite effect — the state produced three times more plasticafter the ban went into effect. Yet California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington all have restrictive single-use bag legislation in place.

When a bag ban is implemented, traditional grocery bags vanish from checkout counters overnight. They’re replaced with reusable bags that cost several dollars each, adding yet another expense to the already rising cost of groceries. Instead of serving as a sustainable solution, these bags often became just another purchase. Worse, the laws meant to reduce waste often increase it: heavier “reusable” plastic bags use 15 to 20 times more plasticthan a single-use bag and are still discarded after only a handful of uses.

Some localities and environmental groups want to go even further, lobbying legislatures to ban thin-film plastic bags used for separating produce. These excessive regulations not only inconvenience consumers but also risk food safety by limiting options for packaging fresh items like fruits and vegetables.

When elected officials micromanage everyday choices at the grocery store, they cross a line. Whether it’s what we eat, how we store it, or how we carry it, those decisions belong with consumers, not the government.

Asshoppers can freely choose between Honey Nut Cheerios or the store brand, they should also be able to choose any type of bag at the register or bring their own. Restrictive bag bans aren’t the path to environmental progress. Real sustainability comes from consumer buy-in, not coercion.

Until policymakers understand that, they’ll continue removing consumer choice instead of investing in solutions that actually work.

Source: (LinkedIn) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/legislating-away-consumer-choice-grocery-qir9e/?trackingId=6sJyYjRZAKlHnbWZ7E%2FSOQ%3D%3D