Connecticut environmentalists raised their reusable water bottles for a toast when Public Act 19-117 was passed six years ago, phasing out single-use plastic bags at checkouts.

The law was structured in two phases: a mandatory 10-cent charge on plastic bags from the summer of 2019 to 2021, and then an outright ban. The CT League of Conservation Voters called the passage “a bloody battle,” hard-won against opposition from retailers, the plastic lobby, and conservative lawmakers characterizing the ten cent charge as a tax.

In spite of the noise, the bill was ratified and became enshrined in the Connecticut General Statutes § 22a-246a(c): “On and after July 1, 2021, no owner or operator of a store shall provide or sell a single-use checkout bag to a customer.”

Here we are, nearly four years later, and I’m still offered a plastic bag nearly every time I visit an establishment that serves food.

So, what happened?

For starters, the Governor’s Office suspended the bag fee between March and June of 2020 as a measure to protect retail workers from handling reusable bags during COVID-19. When the ban itself rolled around, the focus was on grocery store chains – and to their credit, it seems to have stuck with them. Although the law does not require reporting once the ban is in place, similar bans in New Jersey, Vermont, Philadelphia, Pa.; Portland, Ore.; and Santa Barbara, Calif., are estimated to save an average of 296 bags per person per year. Cumulative pressure from all the jurisdictions that have adopted bag bans across the country have surely influenced these large chains to comply.

The problem comes in with the smaller retailers, who don’t have strategists and compliance officers at their national headquarters planning for the ban. What I’ve experienced over the past years is that many have reverted back to using plastic bags – delis, bodegas, takeout establishments, etc. Of note, the law is clear in its definition of “store” that it applies to any retailer, regardless of size, that sells physical goods in Connecticut.

But to whom does it fall to enforce this law? During the two year phase-out that required store owners to charge a fee for plastic bags, retailers were required to report to the CT Department of Revenue Services (DRS). In that case, DRS was clearly the agency tasked with enforcement. They created a reporting form, published guidance, and even put up a Q&A on their website. But now that there is no longer money changing hands, DRS appears to be out of the equation.

The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) or perhaps the Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) would be likely candidates to oversee this law — DEEP especially, given that the statute falls within the chapter on Environmental Protection. Yet both departments’ webpages remain silent on the issue.

The reason I bring this up instead of leaving well enough alone is the same reason so many environmental advocates fought for this ban in the first place. Plastic bags are a cancer so ubiquitous, we’ve forgotten how dangerous they are. So let’s talk about it. Here are three reasons we need to do something about single use plastic bags… again.

1) Public Health: When plastic products break down, they leave behind microplastics in our air, water, and food. The majority of humans and many, many animals – even those in remote environs – have microplastics in their system. These insidious particles are very poorly understood in terms of their impact on our health, but studies have found correlations to subfertility, organ damage, and cancer.

2) Wildlife: (*Note: the webpage linked in the next sentence contains disturbing imagery.) The well-documented harm that plastic pollution causes wildlife – from ingestion to entanglement – is exacerbated by rampant consumption of single-use bags. Moreover, because plastic is made from crude oil, enormous swaths of habitat become collateral damage, forcing animals into dangerous roadways or stressing them to the point of population decline. The Bureau of Land Management reports that over 12 million acres of public land are currently used for oil and gas drilling, in part to keep up with our addiction to plastic.

3) The waste crisis: Over 40% of waste produced in Connecticut is shipped out of state, because we have run out of room to bury or burn our trash. This capacity shortage has led to higher tipping fees (price per ton to get rid of waste), hauling costs, and greenhouse gas emissions. Connecticut desperately needs to cut its waste generation, either through source reduction (make less trash in the first place) or diversion (send it to be used for something other than burying or burning). It can be difficult to see the financial impact of these rising costs given that they are buried in our property taxes, but the truth is that the average fee to dispose of one ton of trash went from around $60 in 2010 to around $110 in 2024.

And here’s the microplastic in the wound – bag bans across the United States have been hugely effective in reducing waste, just like we promised. A 2024 research report found that “In the last 20 years, 12 states covering more than one-quarter of the U.S. population have prioritized reducing plastic waste by banning plastic bags.” The report states that in jurisdictions with bans, billions of plastic bags have been prevented from entering circulation (see pg. 17), plastic bag litter on beaches has gone down 33% – 50% (pg. 10), and one city even saw a 48% reduction of plastic bags in its residential waste stream (pg. 10). These stats have direct relationships to lower municipal costs and better environmental outcomes, as explained above.

I wish I had a clearer call to action to resolve this. Even if the Office of Legislative Research or one of the legal eagles at the state could clarify which agency is responsible for enforcement, I can already hear the canned response we would get: “Due to a lack of staff and resources, limited capacity is available to devote to enforcement.”

And even if the law was perfectly enforced, the language itself contains loopholes – a single-use plastic bag is defined as having a thickness of 4 mil or less, which might explain why the small mom & pop grocery store down the street from me switched to sturdier single use plastic bags and continues to give them out for free.

For now, the best we can do is support the establishments that respect the ban, bring reusable bags everywhere we go, and contact state leadership about the lack of enforcement. Because this ban matters – for our wallets, for wildlife, and for the wellbeing of Connecticut.

Christine O’Neill of Wolcott is an environmental planner with a master’s degree in Energy & Environmental Management.