New CA Law To Trigger Big Change For Grocery Shopping In 2026

Starting Jan. 1, plastic grocery bags will be phased out in California grocery stores as part of a renewed push to curb environmental waste.

California first banned plastic grocery bags in 2014, but the law carved out an exception for thicker bags meant to be reused up to 125 times — a provision pushed for by plastic and grocery lobbyists.

In September Gov. Gavin Newsom signed, SB 1053, which lawmakers hope will finally close that loophole. The law replaces the original plastic bag ban, SB 270, and will only allow stores to distribute recycled carryout paper bags to customers for a minimum charge of 10 cents per bag.

Just after the original law's passage more than a decade ago, in Los Angeles Times opinion article, Mark Daniels, chairman of the American Progressive Bag Alliance called the effort "yet another job-killing, big grocer cash grab masquerading as an environmental bill."

The California Grocer's Association had endorsed SB 1053.

"We know that even the best policies may need to be updated over time to reflect changes in our society, so today marks the continuation of the work that started with SB 270 and is an important new chapter in our efforts to support the communities grocers serve and our environment," said California Grocers Association VP of Government Relations, Daniel Conway.

Come next year, paper bags will be the only option at grocery stores statewide. And by 2028, those bags will be required to be made of at least 50 percent recycled paper.

“What people will experience on the first day of 2026 is not dissimilar from what people experienced when the law first went into effect, before the stores and the bag manufacturers began exploiting what became a loophole,” Mark Murray, director of Californians Against Waste, which helped write the 2014 law, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Instead of ‘paper or plastic’ the question is going to be, ‘Do you need to purchase a paper bag?’”

The original law made an exemption for thicker plastic bags made of high-density polyethylene, or HDPE, at the urging of plastic lobbyists and proponents, such as Exxon Mobile.

"Although proponents of HDPE bags will claim they are easily recyclable in California, these bags need to go to specialty recycling facilities," according to Californians Against Waste.

The state is now suing ExxonMobil, accusing the company of deceiving the public on the recyclability of plastic. The conglomerate is the largest producer of polymers — substances that are used to make single-use plastic such as plastic bags that end up in landfills. ExxonMobil has promoted such plastics as recyclable. However, a vast majority of plastic products are not recyclable, according to the state.

"Plastics are everywhere, from the deepest parts of our oceans, the highest peaks on earth, and even in our bodies, causing irreversible damage—in ways known and unknown—to our environment and potentially our health," said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. "For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn’t possible."

READ MORE: CA Accuses Exxon Of 'Decades Of Deception' In Plastic Recycling 'Myth'

The state blamed ExxonMobil's "deceptive" marketing for a boom in plastic bag use following the 2014 bag ban.

"This caused consumers to purchase and use more single-use plastic than they otherwise would have," the statement continued.

A CalPIRG report found that by 2022, Californians were throwing out 47 percent more plastic grocery and merchandise bags than when the ban first passed.

“It was a nasty loophole,” Meredith McCarthy, the senior director of community outreach and partnerships at Heal the Bay, told the Times earlier this year. “I think a lot of people were thinking: ‘Wait, we banned it? And now we use more? How is that possible?'"