Plastic Bags are on the Way Out, With or Without Bans

By Janet Domenitz

If you’ve ever stood outside a supermarket and watched shoppers head to their cars, bags in hand, you’ll notice something striking these days: fewer and fewer plastic bags. That’s exactly what MASSPIRG Education Fund researchers set out to measure in a recent snapshot survey at grocery stores across Massachusetts—and the results are encouraging.

Over the course of two weeks this summer, we observed shoppers exiting stores in 12 communities: half with local plastic bag bans, and half without. What we found was that in towns that restrict or phase out plastic bags, just 1% of shoppers left with only plastic bags. In towns with no restrictions? That number was 13%.

Sure, 13% is higher—but it’s still a small fraction of the shopping public. In other words, most shoppers in Massachusetts are finding alternatives to single-use plastic whether their town has a bylaw or not. The shift is happening.

To put it another way, for many people, Plastic Free July isn’t just one month—it has become a mindset.

We tracked six bag categories in our survey: plastic only, paper only, reusable only, a mix including reusable bags, a mix without reusables, and no bag at all (just carrying items out by hand). From this, it’s clear that reusable bags are gaining real traction—and fast.

This is no accident. For years, advocates across the Commonwealth—from MASSPIRG and the Sierra Club to Surfrider Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Food Association—have worked to raise awareness about plastic pollution and push for smarter policy.

Currently, 163 Massachusetts cities and towns covering more than two-thirds of the state’s population have passed local plastic bag ordinances. As Clint Richmond of the Sierra Club’s Massachusetts chapter puts it, “These policies have succeeded. But it makes no sense to have a patchwork of local regulations. We need a comprehensive statewide law.”

We at MASSPIRG agree. A uniform statewide standard would both support what shoppers are already doing and would help level the playing field for retailers and municipalities. It would send a clear signal: we can and should move on from single-use plastic bags.

As Alex Vai of the Surfrider Foundation Massachusetts noted, “This shows that meaningful, large-scale behavior change is possible when we combine strong public policy with public education.”

In Belmont, one of the 12 municipalities surveyed, environmental awareness runs high and residents are already making thoughtful choices every day.

The trend is clear. Most people want to do the right thing—they just need the tools and the policies to make that easier. Let’s build on this momentum and make Plastic Free July a permanent part of our future.

Janet Domenitz is the executive director of MASSPIRG.