Price Of Single-Use Plastic Bags In WA Increasing To 12 Cents

If you're anything like me when it comes time to do the weekly grocery shopping, then you're constantly forking over some extra pocket change to pay for a few single-use plastic bags to carry everything home in.

If that's the case, then we both might want to finally start remembering to bring those reusable bags we always seem to keep forgetting, because soon enough that pocket change we shell out for single-use bags is going to become noticeably weightier.

Beginning on Jan. 1, supermarket-goers in Washington State will pay an extra four cents per single-use plastic bag, despite there being no planned changes to their thickness, design, or overall durability.

The increase is part of a pricing phase-in attached to a law that was passed by the State Legislature in 2020 which outlawed many traditional single-use plastic bags that were thinner, and also enacted specific regulations for any retailers who offered them.

The law requires both plastic and paper one-time use bags to contain at least 40% recycled content, with further stipulations regarding the required thickness of plastic bags to meet standards allowing them to be marked as "reusable."

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According to the law, the patrons of any store offering the reusable bags will pay a fee to receive them, which will help in offsetting the cost of the retailer's requirement to carry them.

Initially, the law established a per-bag price of eight cents for both paper and plastic, with a scheduled increase to 12 cents for plastic bags to take effect at the start of 2026.

The same law also states that retailers must begin using plastic bags which are roughly 60% thicker at the beginning of 2026, but lawmakers passed legislation earlier this year delaying that mandate for another two years.

Other amendments to the law in 2025 also created a penalty of four cents per bag for any retailer who switched to the thicker bags ahead of the new 2028 timeline. Furthermore, this penalty was deemed allowable to pass along to the consumer, who would pay a total per-bag price of 16 cents, with the additional four-cent penalty going into the state's account for waste reduction, recycling, and litter control.

Recent studies have reportedly found that, since the law was enacted, shoppers are using fewer single-use bags but the state's requirements for thicker bags has caused an increase in the manufacturing of more plastic materials.

According to the state Department of Commerce, there are roughly 80,000 businesses that are continuously impacted by the law, which does not apply to consumers who receive benefits through food assistance programs in Washington.