Walmart Starts Charging NJ Customers For Reusable Bags in Deliveries

The free ride is over for some Walmart customers and free reusable shopping bags.

Walmart stores in New Jersey began charging delivery customers for reusable bags Tuesday ending a nearly year-long grace period after the state ban on plastic bags went into effect on May 4.

The price is 42 cents per bag.

A Walmart spokesman told Townsquare Media that customers can opt out of getting bags for their order but have to leave a tote or reusable bag of their own.

Under the law, retailers are prohibited from offering customers paper and plastic bags in-store, for deliveries or for orders being picked up.

Changes to bag law?

The issue of too many reusable bags piling up in people's cars and garages prompted a call for the return of paper bags in grocery stores and at other retailers.

The sponsor of New Jersey's plastic bag ban, state Sen. Bob Smith, R-Middlesex, has said that he would consider allowing the use of paper bags or the return of reusable bags to stores for a refund to help eliminate the glut.

No legislation was ever introduced.

More than half of New Jersey's residents are not content with the state's current ban on single-use paper and plastic bags, according to poll results released in February by Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Forty percent of poll respondents said they support keeping New Jersey's ban as is. Thirty-three percent want the law overturned completely, and 26% said they support a modification of the law, which is considered to be the strictest bag ban in the country.