NJ plastic utensils ban, one week in: How it's going

I still haven't fully adjusted to the plastic bag ban, and it's been years now. It never fails: I'm at Wawa, juggling a shorty, a fountain drink, a bag of chips, and whatever else I've decided I need to get through a workday properly nourished, all of it stacked in my arms because I didn't grab a bag on the way in. Add a hot coffee to that lineup and the whole thing turns into something closer to a high-wire circus act than a lunch run.

So when New Jersey's newest plastic rule, the "Skip the Stuff" law, took effect August 1, I figured I'd check back in a week later and see how it's actually playing out.

What changed, officially

Starting this month, restaurants, food trucks, and delivery apps across the state stopped automatically tossing in plastic utensils, napkins, and condiment packets with your order. Now you have to ask. Delivery apps default to "no utensils" unless you actively change the setting. Sit-down restaurants that seat 10 or more people now have to hand you real silverware instead of plastic. Self-serve dispensers are still allowed, as long as they hand out one item at a time instead of a bundled pack. Businesses that don't comply get a warning the first time, a $100 fine the second, and $250 for every violation after that within a year.

My first real encounter with it

This week gave me my first actual test of the new normal, and it wasn't about a fork. I grabbed a fountain drink at my local Ewing Wawa and went looking for a straw, the way I've done a thousand times without thinking about it. Couldn't find one anywhere near the fountain machines. I asked the guy behind the food counter, who told me they don't keep many out, but pointed me toward a stash of the big straws tucked almost out of sight behind the counter. I asked. He handed one over. That's apparently just how this works now.

A state that keeps finding new things to ask permission for

I've written before about how New Jersey seems to be working its way through an entire checklist of everyday items, bags, leaf blowers, e-bikes, and now straws and forks, one law at a time. None of it's dramatic on its own. It's just a small extra step, repeated often enough that you start noticing it. A week into this one, my honest read is that it's mostly working the way these things tend to: mildly annoying at first, easy enough once you remember to just ask.

I'll adjust. I always do. But somewhere my parents, who spent their careers in the plastics industry, are shaking their heads at all of it.