Efforts to keep plastic bags from polluting the region’s waterways took a significant step back late Tuesday when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blocked New York City’s 5-cent bag fee just hours before it was to take effect.
The move affects New Jersey because grocery bags and other thin films make up about 20 percent of the plastic garbage found in the rivers and streams in the two states' shared watershed, according to a study last year by NY/NJ Baykeeper.
New York City’s fee and a similar one proposed for New Jersey have faced significant opposition from plastics manufacturers. Plastic grocery bags have become so synonymous with litter that they have been banned in several U.S. cities, California and Hawaii, and China and India, among other countries
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