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March 27, 2020

Lamont bags the plastic-bag ban — at least for now

By Michael C. Bingham

Since the explosion of the coronavirus crisis ten days ago, many state lawmakers have been urging Gov. Ned Lamont to issue an executive order suspending the state’s plastic-bag prohibition, at least for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis.

And now he has. As of 5 p.m. Thursday, Lamont issued an executive order temporarily suspending the single-use bag ban.

The issue had come up in conversations between state legislative leaders and the governor’s office about how state government can best respond to the coronavirus crisis in a way that safeguards public health without unbearably burdening businesses already caught in the crosshairs of shutdowns and self-quarantining on the part of consumers.

Last year, in an initiative to “go green,” Connecticut became the eighth U.S. state to ban the use of free plastic bags and impose fees on shoppers for acquiring them at grocery stores and other retailers. The ban took effect August 1. Since then shoppers have been forced either to bring their own bags  when shopping or to pay 10 cents per bag to the retail establishment.

That fee, passed on to the state, was calculated to generate some $27 million annually for the state’s coffers.

Since the onset of the COVID crisis, other New England states have lifted their plastic-bag bans for the duration. 

On Saturday (March 21) New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu issued an emergency executive order prohibiting reusable shopping bags and mandating that stores use disposable plastic or paper bags instead.

Sununu was followed by Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, who on Wednesday lifted local bans on grocery stores distributing plastic bags as part of an effort to allay coronavirus contagion fears.

Over the same period a number of Connecticut lawmakers including House Minority Leader Themis Klarides (R-114) of Derby asked the governor to lift the ban for the duration of the emergency.

“We’re not saying get rid of [the plastic-bag prohibition] forever, but you certainly [ought to] suspend it now so people cannot use reusable bags,” Klarides said. “It’s a common-sense thing to do for now.”

The coronavirus can live on surfaces for up to nine days, scientists have determined, and the reusable shopping bags to which most consumers have resorted in lieu of plastic are considered to be active community transmitters of the contagion.

“Our grocery-store workers are on the front line” of the crisis, Klarides said shortly before Lamont issued his executive order, “working around the clock to keep people fed. With identified community transmission [of the COVID-19 virus], you don’t know if people with reusable bags have cleaned those bags. So we have to protect them [grocery-store and other retail workers] as much as we can.”

Connecticut lawmakers have adjourned until April 13 from the special legislative session that was scheduled to continue until May 6. In their absence the initiative for state government action has passed to Lamont, who has governed by emergency executive order.

The most dramatic of those was the closing of most state businesses deemed “non-essential,” which took effect at 8 p.m. last Monday night.

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