After several failed attempts, New York state is poised to ban single-use plastic bags provided by stores, making it only the second US state, after California, to pass such a rule.

With Democrats controlling both chambers of the state legislature, lawmakers have reached agreement to include the plastic ban in a broader framework of budgetary measures to be voted on by Monday.

If the bill passes, the ban on single-use plastic bags — which still allows for several exemptions — would take effect in March 2020.

"I think we're going to look back and wonder why this isn't something that was commonplace before now," state senator Todd Kaminsky told NBC television Thursday. "But I'm glad we're doing it now and leading the way."

Governor Andrew Cuomo tried unsuccessfully last year to prohibit the bags.

"For far too long, these bags have blighted our environment and clogged our waterways," he said recently, adding that the ban would "protect our natural resources for future generations."

Despite plastic's notoriously harmful impact on the natural environment and on wildlife, few American states — with the exception of environmentally-minded bastions on the West Coast — have pursued legal restrictions.

The European Parliament approved a ban Wednesday on numerous plastic consumer products, including straws, cotton swabs and plastic wrapping. The measures are to take effect in 2021.

New Yorkers use some 23 billion plastic sacks a year, Cuomo said last year.

In New York, a temple of consumerism with 8.5 million inhabitants, supermarkets generally provide free plastic bags, sometimes doubled for greater solidity.

In 2016, the city passed a law to impose a five-cent tax on each plastic bag, but it was overturned at the state level.

Under the new legislation, New York counties would be able to levy a five-cent tax on paper bags, with part of the resulting revenue going to an environmental-protection fund.

California banned plastic bags in 2014.

They are banned in much of Hawaii, since that state's most populous counties now prohibit their use.

EU parliament approves ban on single use plastics
Brussels (AFP) March 27, 2019 –

European lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Wednesday for an EU-wide ban on single-use plastic products such as the straws, cutlery and cotton buds that are clogging the world's oceans.

The text had already been approved in negotiations with member states and EU officials and it will now be rapidly approved into law. The ban comes into effect from 2021.

EU Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans said Europe was not the worst source of plastic pollution, but that the pioneering measure could serve as an example to the world.

"Asian countries are very much interested in what we're doing. Latin American countries too," he said.

"Even though our share of the pollution is relatively limited, our change of the economic model has a global impact."

The law passed by 560 votes to 35 in the Strasbourg assembly.

Aside from the ban on a dozen kinds of disposable products for which alternatives exist, the EU will encourage member states to reduce the use of plastic packaging and introduce stricter labelling rules.

The law sets a target that 90 percent of plastic bottles will be gathered for recycling by 2029 and that they should be produced with 25 percent recycled material by 2025, 30 percent by 2030.

Rules insisting that polluters pay the costs of a clean-up are strengthened, particularly for cigarette manufacturers, who will have to support the recycling of discarded filters.

According to the EU Commission, the products prohibited under the law represent 70 percent of the waste that pours into the world's oceans, posing a threat to wildlife and fisheries.