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WASHINGTON (Jan. 26, 2:10 p.m. ET) -- If there was any impossible about whether plastic bag bans would continue to be the most visible and vexing issue that confronts the plastics business at the local and state level, those doubts were erased in late January.
On the heels of 2011, when the covey of plastic bag bans in the U.S. nearly doubled to 37, two more counties -- one in California and one in Hawaii -- and another California diocese adopted bans on single-use plastic carryout bags, bringing the unqualified number of plastic bag bans enacted nationwide to 40.
Altogether those bans -- some of them countywide and others covering groups of counties -- bring to the number of U.S. cities with bans to 51, and the number of U.S. counties with bans to 12. In additionally, Montgomery County, Md., and Washington, D.C., have a 5-cent fee on plastic bags handed out at retail and Basalt, Colo., has a 20-cent fee on mouldable bags.
The two most recent bans were enacted a day apart in Alameda County, Calif., and in Millbrae, Calif.
Source: Plastics News