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

090, adopted by City Ordinance 18-036 and effective in phases through 2019, prohibits any retail establishment from providing a disposable plastic shopping bag to a customer for carrying away goods from the point of sale. The ban applies broadly: the ordinance defines "retail establishment" to include restaurants, pharmacies, convenience and grocery stores, liquor stores, seasonal and temporary businesses, jewelry stores and household goods stores, whether operated for profit or not. "Disposable plastic shopping bag" covers checkout bags made predominantly of petroleum, natural-gas or plant-based plastic, including degradable and non-compostable biodegradable bags, but excludes bags used for loose produce, laundry or dry cleaning, newspapers, and prepackaged frozen food, meat or fish.

The ordinance does not stop a store from selling reusable bags or providing recyclable paper bags, defined as one hundred percent recyclable stock with at least forty percent post-consumer content and labeled as such. Enforcement is phased: the Department of Inspectional Services issues a warning notice for a first violation, and only imposes a monetary penalty if a second violation occurs within a year of that warning. The phase-in schedule tied store size to a compliance date: stores of 20,000 square feet or more had to comply by July 1, 2019, stores of at least 10,000 square feet by September 1, 2019, and every smaller store by December 31, 2019.