Secaucus Bans Plastic Bags, Starting In Feb. 2020

SECAUCUS, NJ — Starting this winter, shoppers will no longer be given most plastic bags in Secaucus.

This past Tuesday night, the Secaucus town council passed an ordinance, which will become law, that will ban single-use plastic bags in town. The law will take effect February 1, 2020.

This a dramatic and sweeping change for the town: Delis, takeout restaurants, liquor stores, pizza places and the Green Farmers' Market will no longer be able to give their customers their purchased items in plastic bags.

Instead of plastic, stores will now have to use paper bags; customers will be charged ten cents per paper bag. Or, customers can bring their own reusable tote bags in.

The town said it will spend the next five months educating residents and businesses about the ban, and preparing them for it. There are also exemptions to the new law, which include trash bags (such as Glad), pet waste bags, newspaper bags, dry cleaning bags and small produce bags for vegetables and fruits, as well as small bags at pharmacies to protect shoppers' privacy.

The town of Secaucus has more than 2,000 reusable totes they will be distributing to residents for free over the next five months. Senior citizens will be getting first priority.

Chain stores such as the Walmart supercenter, Home Depot and CVS also have to comply with the ban, said Secaucus Environmental Director Amanda Nesheiwat, who wrote and proposed the ordinance.

"Walmart is a huge contributor to plastic bags just flooding the Meadowlands," said Nesheiwat. "On any given weekend day, there are just hundreds of unused plastic bags from Walmart floating around their parking lot and back fence. We spoke with the manager of the Walmart and he said he can't imagine Walmart without plastic bags. But we told him they will have to comply."

Nesheiwat said starting in February, Walmart shoppers will have to bring their own reusable totes, pay the ten cents extra per paper bag — or Walmart could start giving their items in cardboard boxes, which she said the store has a surplus of.

Nesheiwat pointed out that the Sams' Club right next door has never used plastic bags and gives their items to customers in cardboard boxes or they carry them out as is.

"Ten cents is the price to pay for single-use plastics," she added.

At a certain point after February, Secaucus will start fining businesses that do not comply, Nesheiwat said.

Councilman James Clancy was the sole person to vote against the proposed ban on Tuesday night.

"I just don't agree with it and I don't think it's necessary," Clancy told Patch Thursday. "I go to Shop Rite and I get plastic bags and then they are reused as trash bags or picking up dog waste."

How are Secaucus business owners reacting, particularly those that rely on plastic bags, such as the Green Farmers' Market, delis, liquor stores and pizza places?

"Well, I need to learn more about it, but I think it sucks," said Patrick DeCesare, the owner of Filomena's Italian deli, a longtime business and sandwich takeout spot. "The customer is not going to be happy with this, I can tell you that. Who comes to order a hero sandwich and a soda and brings their own bag with them to take it home? So, that's not going to happen. Then I have to give them their order in a paper bag and charge them 10 cents for that? The customer is just not going to be happy about that."

Hearing his concerns, Nesheiwat said she plans to talk to DeCesare and other small-business owners about possible revisions to the ordinance.

"When we say ten cents per bag, we are mainly focusing on the large paper bags with handles, not small paper sandwich bags," she said. "We do want to make this as easy on the business owners as possible, and we want to work with business owners. I think that small businesses may be reacting without knowing the details yet. We will work with Walmart to see what we can do."

The problem is many people in Secaucus do as Clancy said, and reuse the plastic bags as home garbage bags. According to Nesheiwat, that use of plastic bags is fine, as they end up in landfills like regular garbage bags. It's when single-use plastics are used for ten minutes and then discarded that they end up in our oceans and waterways. If people still want to re-use small plastic bags as kitchen garbage bags, Nesheiwat says the town collects and you can pick them up at TREX boxes located at the Recreation Center, Town Hall, Library and Senior Center.

The owners of the Krauszer's on Meadowlands Parkway were aware of the ban and they said they plan to give customers their purchases in paper bags starting in February.

"I think it's a good idea. They did it in Jersey City and you see many fewer plastic bags on the streets," said Ashish Patel, part of the family that owns that Krauszer's. "Right now most of my customers don't like bags. 30 percent of my customers don't even take bags."

This past summer, Jersey City banned single-use plastic bags, as did Asbury Park. Hoboken's ban on single-used plastics took effect this past January. Secaucus can now add itself to a list of towns that are at the forefront of this movement across the state.

Secaucus Mayor Mike Gonnelli said he supports the ban.

"We do these town clean ups and we are finding so many plastic bags; it's really a problem," he said.

In addition to the town giving away bags, Immaculate Conception Church is selling reusable insulated bags and cloth bags. You can buy them at their gift shop on Sundays and they will be available at their Feast.

Related: Hoboken Bans Styrofoam In Businesses, Adds Bite To Bag Embargo

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