A new effort to ban the use of plastic bags has begun in the state Legislature.

Rep. Maureen Madden, D-Tannersville, along with fellow Democrat Reps. Tarik Khan, Mandy Steele and Greg Scott, are circulating a co-sponsorship memorandum for legislation to ban single-use plastic bags. Roughly 25 Pennsylvania cities and municipalities already ban single-use plastic bags, but there is no statewide ban. There have been legislative talks about plastic bag bans since 2017, making Madden’s bill just the latest attempt to move Pennsylvania in line with neighbors like New Jersey and New York.

“Our legislation would follow the lead of a dozen states (including New Jersey, Delaware, and New York) and over 500 cities across the US by prohibiting the use of single-use plastic bags. Interventions like plastic bag bans decrease the number of bags found in the environment by over one-third,” Madden wrote in her co-sponsorship memorandum.

California is the most recent state to change its law regarding plastic bags – and the state had already banned thin plastic shopping bags at supermarkets and other stores. Shoppers could still purchase bags made with a thicker plastic that state law said made them reusable and recyclable. That will change in 2026, when consumers who don’t bring their own bags will now simply be asked if they want a paper bag. New York banned plastic bags in 2020.

State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, one of the bill’s supporters, told the Associated Press that people were not reusing or recycling any plastic bags. She said a state study found that the amount of plastic shopping bags trashed per person grew from 8 pounds a year in 2004 to 11 pounds a year in 2021.

“We are literally choking our planet with plastic waste,” she said in February 2024.

Madden, Khan, Steele and Scott say Pennsylvania is using five billion single-use plastic bags each year, with too many of those bags showing up in landfills, roads, parks, rivers and waterways. The lawmakers say microplastics pollution is a threat to the state’s fishing industry, which combined with hunting contributes $1.5 billion a year to the state’s economic output.

“Fish often mistake these plastic particles for food, and microplastics are increasingly being found in our seafood,” Madden wrote. “In fact, studies show that 100% of samples from Pennsylvania waterways tested positive for microplastics, and 100% of fish caught and sampled in the Schuylkill River tested positive for microplastics.”

A 2024 study by the PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group estimated, on average, bans on single-use plastic bags can eliminate almost 300 plastic bags per person per year – but recommended against California’s original approach of allowing lighter plastics to qualify as reusable bags. Studies of bag bans with such loopholes, the study states, show that many people only use these thicker bags once, too, before throwing them away. While Madden and her fellow Democrats haven’t formally introduced a bill yet, the PennEnvironment study states there any new plastic bag ban should not allow plastic film bags of any thickness at checkout, should include a fee of at least 10 cents for single-use paper bags and ensure proper enforcement.

“The right to pure water and the natural values of the environment are enshrined in the Pennsylvania constitution,” Madden wrote. “Please join us in this simple but important intervention to safeguard our waterways and protect Pennsylvanians from the harmful effects of microplastic consumption.”