Haverhill, MA Single-Use Items: Plastic Bag Rules (2026)

City Code § 173-10 defines a "checkout bag" as any carryout bag a store provides at the point of sale, but excludes produce bags, laundry or dry-cleaner bags, newspaper bags, and bags used to wrap frozen food, meat or fish. To satisfy the rule, a bag must qualify as either a "recyclable bag," meaning a paper bag that is 100% recyclable including its handles, contains at least 40% post-consumer recycled content, and displays those facts on the outside, or a "reusable bag" built for multiple uses from polyester, polypropylene, cotton or other durable material, or from durable plastic at least 4.0 mils thick.

The rule applies to any "retail establishment" selling goods directly to customers, from restaurants and pharmacies to grocery, liquor and jewelry stores, but exempts nonprofit bazaars and festivals, outdoor farmer's markets, and any store under 3,000 square feet of interior finished floor area. The Department of Inspectional Services enforces the section and may adopt its own regulations to implement it. The requirement phased in by store size: six months from passage for stores over 8,000 square feet, and nine months for stores between 3,000 and 8,000 square feet.

Within 60 days of the effective date, the City had to give every senior citizen resident, as defined in Code § 206-1, one free reusable bag. The Director of Inspectional Services may grant a retail establishment a six-month hardship exemption, but only for a genuine lack of alternatives, a conflict with a legally protected right, or the need to draw down an existing inventory of plastic bags while filing monthly inventory reports.