Plastic bags are set to get sacked in New York starting March 1, 2020, when the ban and a 5-cent fee on paper bags officially go into effect, state lawmakers said Friday.

The measure, which is part of the state budget expected to pass before a midnight Sunday night deadline, allows cities and counties to opt in to the paper-bag fee.

And Mayor de Blasio was quick to say that the city is ready to get aboard.

“I do believe that we have to get away from paper bags, too, so I want to see the details of how it would be structured, but as a broad notion, we need to get away from paper bags,” de Blasio said on his weekly segment on WNYC radio.

“If the fee is what allows us to do it, I could support that.”

De Blasio previously signed a “bag tax” measure in 2017 which would have forced shoppers to plunk down a nickel per plastic bag, but it was blocked by the state Legislature.

The mayor said he is still “adamantly in favor” of ditching plastic bags but emphasized the city will step up efforts to get residents — “especially low-income folks” — access to reusable bags.

Under the measure, welfare recipients and those receiving WIC and SNAP benefits would be exempt from paying the 5-cent paper bag fee.

Among the plastic-bag exemptions are for restaurant takeout food and newspaper deliveries.

State Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-LI) said he’s bracing for growing pains once the ban is in place.

“There is going to be a level of coming to grips with, I understand, ubiquitous part of our lives,” he said.

“The average length of time an American uses is 12 minutes with a single-use plastic bag, so shifting over to reusable bags is what this is bill does.”

Shoppers in Brooklyn were ready to start stockpiling plastic bags before they vanish from stores.

“I don’t think they should do it. You have to get money to buy it [a reusable shopping bag],” griped Daphne Gibbs, 55, who emerged from Target on Flatbush Avenue with her purchases in a double plastic bag. “Many people can’t afford it. I’m saving these. I’m going to wash them, dry them, fold them up and put them in a box on top of the shelf.”

Sharon King, who had stuffed just-purchased pillows into two big Target plastic bags in Gateway Center, had a similar plan.

“What are we going to put our things in? I have cloth bags, I have some of those, but sometimes you forget it and you don’t have a bag,” said King, 52. “I’m going to save these.”
Jennifer King, meanwhile, worried about having to pony up 5 cents each time she goes shopping.

“We recycle the bags, so why do we have to pay for them?” she said outside of Atlantic Terminal with her 1-year-old daughter Nyalia. “When you don’t have much money, all that adds up. Especially if you have kids to take care of — every 5 cents, everything adds up.”

New York is becoming the second state to ban plastic bags, following California, which made the move in 2016.

All counties in Hawaii also bar single-use plastic bags.

If cities and counties in New York opt into the paper-bag fee, they’ll receive 40 percent of the revenues. The remainder would go to the state’s Environmental Protection Fund.

New Yorkers go through about 23 billion plastic bags a year.

Additional reporting by Khristina Narizhnaya