New Jersey plastic utensil ban

New Jersey’s “Skip the Stuff” law, signed by Governor Phil Murphy in January 2026, took effect on August 1, 2026. It prohibits restaurants, cafés, food trucks, drive‑ins and delivery services from automatically providing single‑use plastic cutlery, straws, condiment packets or spice packets with take‑away orders. Customers must explicitly request these items, and online ordering platforms must default to omitting them.

The legislation imposes a graduated penalty system—first offense a warning, second a $100 fine, and $250 for each subsequent breach—and requires eateries with ten or more seats to use reusable flatware for dine‑in service. The law builds on earlier state measures, including bans on single‑use plastic bags and polystyrene containers in 2022 and a plastic‑straw restriction introduced in 2021, aiming to cut the estimated 20 billion plastic utensils discarded annually in New Jersey and reduce nationwide waste.

Officials present the ban as a common‑sense step toward waste reduction, while some critics argue it diverts attention from higher‑priority issues such as property taxes and housing affordability.