Five years after Sonoma County and the city of Santa Rosa banned single-use plastic bags at local supermarkets and stores, the much-maligned plastic bag is making a comeback — and reviving some familiar problems. The new breed of plastic bag, introduced a little more than two years ago, is marketed as a thicker, sturdier sack that can be reused dozens of times, and also is recyclable.

But Sonoma County’s dominant waste hauler doesn’t accept the bag in its recycling stream in part because they jam up its machines. Increasingly, they are ending up in the landfill — resurrecting a problem that the county’s ban and the subsequent statewide prohibition on single-use plastic bags were meant to address.

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