They may never rate as collector’s items, but plastic checkout bags are about to become a rare find.

A ban on single-use bags, approved by the Oregon Legislature, went into effect Wednesday. It will be a big change for many on the North Coast, though businesses say they have seen it coming for some time now.

Under the new restrictions, retail stores and restaurants may only offer reusable plastic or fabric bags or recycled paper bags at checkout — single use plastic bags will still be allowed in other instances, such as for bulk items. In many cases, a small fee may be charged for a checkout bag. Nearly a dozen cities had already imposed local bans ahead of the statewide rule and similar restrictions exist in several states, including California.

Along with the ban on single-use bags, Oregon lawmakers also banned restaurants from automatically offering single-use plastic straws.

“Overall, we think it’s the correct move for sustainability and the environment,” said Sarah Lu Heath, the executive director of the Astoria Downtown Historic District Association, of the ban on single-use bags. The downtown association represents a number of downtown businesses and merchants.

When former Astoria Mayor Arline LaMear floated the idea of a citywide plastic bag ban in 2018, the downtown association did not hear much backlash. Downtown was similarly quiet ahead of the statewide ban.

“We haven’t received any feedback that this is troublesome,” Heath said. “I think it’s something that, philosophically, our community is engaged with.”

David Reid, the executive director of the Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce, has heard some confusion from businesses. Some retailers who may have been transitioning away from single-use bags on their own also feel “a little bit of consternation that the state would get between them and their customers and tell them what they have to sell to their customers.”

“It felt, to some people, kind of heavy-handed,” Reid said. But, he added, “Everybody’s taking this with a grain of salt: ‘We’ve seen it around the country. We’ve seen it around the state.’ It was probably coming in one form or another.”

As for any confusion about how the ban rolls out and exactly what it means for both the state and the businesses, Reid added, “A month from now, we will all have figured out what we’re going to do.”

Manzanita first on coast

Communities in neighboring Tillamook County have had more time to get used to the idea.

In 2017, Manzanita became the first Oregon Coast city to pass a citywide ban on single-use bags. Merchants were given a grace period to use up their back stock of plastic bags. The communities in Wheeler and Bay City followed suit the next year.

Several cities in Clatsop County also considered local bans but, in 2019, Seaside was the first to actually pass one. Though the issue was discussed in Astoria, the City Council, led by Mayor Bruce Jones, opted to wait and support the state’s legislation instead.

“For Manzanita, I believe it was a fairly easy transition,” said Kristin Grasseth, the administrative assistant for Manzanita. “A lot of the businesses within the city were already going in that direction.”

The local grocery store, Manzanita Fresh Foods, opened in the city in 1997 and had transitioned away from plastic bags several years ahead of the city’s ban, said owner Jon Welsh. When Welsh opened a second store in Cannon Beach in 2016, the company went away from plastic bags there as well and instead uses branded paper bags.

Welsh estimates that around 20% of his customers already bring their own reusable bags.

Offering paper bags is a significant cost increase over plastic, but communities in Cannon Beach and Manzanita tend to prioritize environmental concerns, Welsh said.

“Obviously we’re a niche market so we’re not as driven by cost as other places,” he said.

A year ago, a group of master recyclers from Tillamook County interviewed many of the businesses from Manzanita to Neskowin about their existing practices and their ability to switch from plastic to paper.

The group found that many businesses had already made the switch, according to David McCall, solid waste program manager for Tillamook County.

While the response to local plastic bag bans has been primarily positive, McCall has heard concerns from several thrift stores ahead of the state ban. Instead of buying their own stock of plastic bags, these stores have relied on customers and employees who drop off used plastic single-use grocery bags.

With the state ban, “they may wind up having to buy bags for the first time ever,” McCall said.

Ripple effect

Tillamook County stopped collecting plastic bags two years ago. Following a ban by China on certain types of imported waste, the county had to make changes in its system and lost its market for plastic bags, McCall said.

The county doesn’t have any way to track what local city bans on plastic bags have meant overall for recycling programs and litter issues. Besides, communities in Tillamook County that passed bans boast a number of people who diligently pick up litter on beaches and around town, McCall said.

But he did see a ripple effect.

When people no longer had the option of plastic bags at the counter, it seemed to make them think about other single use or plastic bags they might have grabbed before without much thought. Plastic bags will still be available for sanitary purposes or things like bulk items.

“They seemed to think, ‘If I don’t need (the bag) at the cash register, why do I need it for my two lemons that I’m going to wash anyway when I get home?’” McCall said.

He thinks communities across the state could see the same thinking happen with the straw ban.

“The two (bans) have an incredible ability to impact people’s thinking about their everyday lives,” McCall said. “We’re not going to miss the straws at the table, but not having them there and giving attention to that is going to result, I think, in people doing things in other ways.”