Rest of California to join South Lake Tahoe in plastic bag ban at grocery stores

The City of South Lake Tahoe imposed a single use, plastic bag ban for grocery stores in the city limits in October of 2013, and now the rest of the state will do the same.

During Tuesday's election, Californians voted to keep a state ban on single use plastic bags, but decided against a measure requiring paper bag fees to go toward environmental causes.

Proposition 67 keeps the statewide plastic shopping bag ban after a referendum funded by the plastics industry unsuccessfully pushed to overturn it.

A separate measure, Prop. 65, would have forced retail stores that charge customers for paper bags to direct profits into a special fund for environmental projects, but that one lost at the poles.

Makers of the plastic bags argued that supermarkets are profiting unfairly from selling paper bags for ten cents, a charge retailers said barely covered costs.

The ban does not prevent plastic bags at retail stores at this time though many cities already ban the use of all plastic at all types of stores.