Business

Stop & Shop latest store to ditch single-use plastic bags — and will charge for paper

The company encourages customers to use reusable bags, but paper bags will also be available for a 10-cent charge.

Plastic bags on a carousel at the Stop and Shop at the South Bay Plaza in 2017.
Plastic bags on a carousel at the Stop & Shop at the South Bay Plaza in 2017. Matthew J. Lee / The Boston Globe, File

By Heather Alterisio

1 minute to read

Stop & Shop plans to eliminate all single-use plastic bags from its stores across the Northeast this summer.

Customers can expect to see all single-use plastic bags gone by July, the company said in an emailed statement.

The supermarket chain, which has its headquarters in Quincy, is “committed to sustainability and helping to protect our environment,” the statement noted.

The company encourages customers to use reusable bags, but paper bags will also be available for a 10-cent charge.

Stop & Shop sells varying types of reusable bags at its stores, including one type that costs just 10 cents. The supermarket also offers community reusable bags with $1 from every purchase going to a local nonprofit.

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Many Stop & Shop stores already exist in communities that have plastic bag bans in place. Boston, for example, banned plastic bags in 2017. Though the ban was temporarily lifted amid the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ban officially went back into effect in October 2020.

As of May, two-thirds of the state, or 157 communities representing more than 4 million people, regulates the use of plastic bags, according to the Massachusetts Sierra Club.

Heather Alterisio

Senior Content Producer

Heather Alterisio, a senior content producer, joined Boston.com in 2022 after working for more than five years as a general assignment reporter at newspapers in Massachusetts.

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