Buyers, Beware: County's Plastic Bag Ban Expands to Small Stores Next Month
If you live, work, or, most importantly, shop in unincorporated Los Angeles County, reusable shopping bags should be on your holiday wish list, because the ban on single-use plastic bags expands to include smaller stores effective January 1, 2012.
Those stores include convenience stores, smaller grocery stores, pharmacies, and food marts. A full list of stores is available via the County's bag ban info site. Customers who do not bring in their own bags will have to pay a 10 cent fee for each paper bag they need for their purchase.
The first phase of the ban, which covered "big" retailers in unincorporated L.A. County, went into enforcement on July 1. The ban was approved in November 2010.
Similar bans, often mimicking the model established by L.A. County, have gone into effect in local municipalities. A ban in the City of Los Angeles was recently tabled until January.
