New Yorkers broadly support the state's plastic bag ban that will take effect a year from now, but uncertainty remains about who the law will affect, and how.

The ban prohibits retailers that collect sales tax, including supermarkets and small businesses, from handing out disposable plastic bags.

The ban exempts bags used for restaurant takeout, plastic garment bags, trash bags, and plastics used to wrap meat, poultry or fish, prescription drugs and newspapers.

Environmental advocates, retail food industry lobbyists and lawmakers were left largely unsatisfied by the final law, which includes a provision that gives counties the option to opt-in to a five-cent fee for paper bags.

In counties and cities that enact the paper bag fee, individuals who receive public assistance benefits, like SNAP or WIC, would be exempt from the fee.

Environmentalists were pushing for the law to include a mandated — rather than optional — fee on paper bags, which "have been found to have a greater carbon footprint than single-use plastic bags," according to a study by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation that was published in January of 2018.

The study also found that the average U.S. family uses around 1,500 single-use plastic bags every year, and Americans annually use 100 billion plastic bags — 50 million of which end up as litter nationwide.

"There's a huge benefit to banning plastic bags, it's a tremendous solid waste issue," said Liz Moran, environmental policy director for the New York Public Interest Research Group. "With that said, there are negative environmental consequences with paper bag use. They're highly energy consumptive, and they do require a lot of water to produce. A lot of energy goes into the process of making paper products.

"We did address an important environmental issue, but we run risks of increasing negative environmental consequences," she said.

Other states, like California and Hawaii, and places like Suffolk County, have enacted similar bag ban laws that include a fee for paper bags. Without the fee, advocates argue that shoppers will simply shift to paper bags and the environmental benefits of the ban will be reduced.

Some, like Democratic Assembly member Patricia Fahy, and Saratoga County Supervisor Tara Gaston, have said the New York law's exemptions are overly broad, and are seeking to loop restaurant take-out bags into the ban, as well.

Others questioned the necessity of the ban altogether, and suggested the policy needed more discussion and research before going into law.

"On its face, to institute another regressive tax, another expense on people trying to make ends meet by taxing their bag, just doesn't seem like a good solution," said Clifton Park Town Supervisor Phil Barrett, who is also a member of the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors.

Barrett, a Republican, along with Gaston, a Democrat, expressed reservations about the law, and said Saratoga County will likely opt out of the five-cent fee for paper bag use.

Proceeds from the five-cent fee would be split with 40 percent going to municipalities and 60 percent to the state Environmental Protection Fund, but both supervisors had questions about what exactly the money in that fund would be used for, and whether it would benefit Saratoga County.

"I understand that many people are concerned with the use and disposal of plastic bags, but paper bags are hardly a perfect solution, nor are reusable bags," Barrett said, pointing to studies that have shown reusable bags, if not properly washed, may play a role in cross-contamination of foods and the spread of bacteria.

"The whole issue deserves a great deal of additional discussion on whether it's actually environmentally friendly to ditch plastic bags," he said.

Those studies showing your tote bag is teeming with bacteria have been disputed, however, and advocates point to the success other places that have implemented similar sorts of bag bans have experienced.

A recent report found that Suffolk County's single-use bag law, which imposed a five-cent fee on paper and plastic bags and went into effect in January of 2018, led to an 81 percent reduction of plastic bag use in the county last year when compared to 2017.

Suffolk County's law also led to a nearly 79 percent reduction in paper bag use, according to Newsday.

Steve McLaughlin, the Rensselaer County executive, said he's made no final decision on whether or not he supports opting in to the paper bag fee, but said he is "very heavily leaning toward not opting in."

Schenectady County spokesman Joe McQueen said no proposals and "no real discussions" by any of the county's legislators have happened regarding whether to opt in to the fee or not.

Albany County Legislator Paul Burgdorf, who represents parts of Latham and Loudonville, said he doesn't support opting in, and questioned needing the ban in the first place.

He also echoed concerns Barrett and Gaston had about the fee disproportionately affecting lower-income residents.

"What's going to happen is that many people, especially poor people, especially inner city people, are not going to be carrying biodegradable cloth bags or reusable bags, and they are going to bear the brunt of this tax," Burgdorf, a Republican, said. "And that's what it is: a tax and a fee on consumers."

Andrew Joyce, chair of the Albany County Legislature, said "we need to do what we can do to maximize the environmental benefits of the ban," but said he hasn't yet formed an opinion on whether or not to opt in to the paper bag fee.

"We haven't had a real, thorough conversation about it among our members," Joyce said. "I want to get a pulse of what they're thinking.""

Other studies have shown shoppers would have to use a single reusable bag over 130 times for it to have less of an environmental impact than single-use plastic bags, but the reusable bags are already popular with shoppers in the Capital Region, and a Siena Research Institute poll published last week showed around two-thirds of New Yorkers think it's good the plastic bag ban made it into the state budget.

One Whole Foods shopper, Ioana Blidaru, said she supports Albany County opting in to the five-cent fee because shoppers wouldn't otherwise be "pushed to change if they don't have to," she said.

"I think it's just going to encourage people to bring their own bags, because even if it's five cents, people are just not going to want to pay that," Blidaru said. "I think we can all bring our own bag and it's really not that big of a hassle."

After shopping at a Hannford store on Wolf Road, Dan Degener joined others who have lamented the ban of plastic bags, which many people often use to line trash cans at home or clean up pet droppings.

Eric Blom, a spokesman for Hannaford Supermarkets, said the store chain has "found that plastic bag bans alone move most people to paper rather than to reusables, so we are very supportive of efforts to increase the use of reusable bags."

"As we think about shopping bags as a company, we also are concerned about the impact of paper shopping bags," the company said in a statement. "We believe that reusable bags are the right choice."

Robert Tefft, of Colonie, walked out of a ShopRite on a recent afternoon with a shopping cart full of groceries, but only a handful of those items were bagged in a single plastic grocery bag.

"That'd be 20 bags...It's $85 worth of groceries, and I've got one little plastic bag " Tefft said. "Everyone should (use tote bags). I've been using them for years."

Moran, the environmental advocate, said the lifestyle change the ban would impose has become exaggerated, and said NYPIRG will be working with lawmakers to push for counties to opt-in to the paper bag fee.

"The (bag ban) impact seems to be so overblown. Everywhere this has been done, people have adjusted well," Moran said. "At the end of the day, we have to change our culture, we have to change how we function as a society to benefit this planet and benefit our health. This is just one simple way to do this."

*An earlier version of this article contained a quote from Hannaford spokesman Eric Blom that included an error.