A plastic bag hangs in a tree in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The New York state legislature on Monday, April 1, 2019, approved a budget that includes a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags.

(Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

At a Glance

Retailers will be banned from providing single-use plastic bags starting March 1, 2020.Counties have the option of adding a 5-cent fee on paper bags.New York becomes only the second state after California to enact a statewide ban.

A statewide ban on single-use plastic bags in New York has been approved as part of the state's $175 billion budget.

New York's legislature approved the budget Monday morning after lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo reached a deal over the weekend. Cuomo said he will sign the budget into law.

Supermarkets and other retailers will be banned from providing single-use plastic bags starting March 1, 2020. Individual counties have the option of charging 5 cents for paper bags, with 2 cents going to local governments and 3 cents to the state's Environmental Protection Fund, according to the Associated Press.

About each year in New York state, according to a report from a state task force. The city of New York alone of plastic bags each year, the Citizens Budget Commission said.

The approval makes New York only the second state with a statewide ban. California instituted a ban in 2016. All of Hawaii's counties forbid plastic bags but it's not state-mandated.

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At least in retail settings have been introduced in state legislatures this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Most would ban or place a fee on plastic bags but at least six would prohibit local governments from enacting bans or fees.

Some of the cities that have enacted single-use plastic bag bans include , Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks about the $175.5 billion state budget during a news conference at the state Capitol on Sunday, March 31, 2019, in Albany, New York.

(AP Photo/Hans Pennink)

“You see plastic bags hanging from trees like some bizarre Christmas ornaments. I’ve been fishing 40 miles out in the ocean and you ,” Gov. Cuomo told reporters on Monday, according to Bloomberg.

A big problem with plastic bags is that they don't decompose. They degrade into smaller particles. Scientists estimate that there are — weighing 269,000 tons — floating in the world's oceans.

"The convenience of plastic bags is simply not worth the environmental impact," Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said, according to AP. "By reducing our state's usage, we will see less litter in our communities and less plastic pollution in our waterways."

The food takeout bags used by restaurants, bags used to wrap deli or meat counter products and bags for bulk items, the New York Times reported. Garment bags, newspaper bags and bags sold in bulk for trash or recycling would be exempt.

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Environmentalists applauded the ban.

“This is as every day the plastic pollution problem worsens,” Jeremy Cherson, a lobbyist for the Riverkeeper environmental group, told the Wall Street Journal. “We encourage local governments to opt-in to the critical fee on paper that will encourage consumers to use reusable shopping bags.”

By making the fee on paper bags optional, Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York, said to the New York Times, instead of reusable bags. He called the plan “a weak response to the scourge of disposable bags."

Matt Seaholm, executive director of American Progressive Bag Alliance, an industry group, told the Journal, “The New York state budget provision that bans and taxes carryout bags not only misses the mark on sustainability by forcing consumers to use bags that are worse for the environment, it imposes a massive new cost on anyone doing retail business in the state of New York.”