In accordance with new state requirements taking effect in 2026, the Napa County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday passed an ordinance to ban single-use plastic bags and food items.
The new ordinance requires dine-in restaurants to use reusable food utensils. Takeaway companies must use certified compostable food products. Companies have twelve months to comply. The new rules apply to restaurants, grocery stores, farmers markets, food trucks, hotels, movie theaters, catering kitchens and commissaries, generally all businesses that have a food permit.
Takeaway items that must be made from compostable natural fibers include kitchen utensils and fruit and vegetable bags. Fiber-based foods that are free from intentionally added fluorinated chemicals, also known as ‘forever chemicals’, which are often used in disposable foods for heat and grease resistance, can persist in the environment and in the human body for extended periods of time and potentially pose health risks, according to Consumer Reports.
California’s fight against plastic has gone into additional rounds. Gavin Newsom signed the nation’s first plastic bag ban as mayor of San Francisco in 2007. California’s ban on single-use plastic bags at grocery store checkouts was first passed in 2014, but plastic makers slipped past it by producing thicker plastic bags, arguing that they were no longer “single use.” because the thicker bags could be used. several times. That loophole was closed in September through a bill passed by Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-San Diego.
“The reality is that the thicker bags are difficult to recycle – few are recycled – and rarely reused,” Blakespear said in an online statement.
According to CalRecycle, the amount of grocery and merchandise bags thrown away by Californians grew from 157,385 tons of plastic bags the year the ban was passed to 231,072 tons in 2022 – an increase of 47%.
Napa County’s new ordinance requires businesses to charge 25 cents per bag, with exceptions for customers using Electronic Benefit Transfer cards, EBT, and for participants in the Women, Infants and Children, WIC, program. Companies can also offer discounts to customers who bring their own food.
The county’s outreach and education efforts include a multilingual FAQ with a list of resources, including suppliers of compostable food items. The Restaurants Care Resilience Fund awards grants to help restaurant businesses purchase dishwashers.
Fines can range from $100 for the first offense to $200 for a second offense within a year; and up to $500 for additional violations within one year.
Twelve states, including California, have already implemented some sort of ban on plastic bags, according to the environmental organization Environment America Research & Policy Center. Hundreds of cities in 28 states also have their own bans on plastic bags.
