Paper or plastic? Baltimore eyes half-ban
The years-long debate in Baltimore over whether to tax or ban disposable plastic bags to reduce waste and litter appears headed for resolution - with half a ban, if that.
A council committee revamped the bag ban it had been considering for two years to give supermarkets, convenience stores and restaurants a choice: use only paper bags at checkout or encourage customers to reduce or recycle the plastic ones. The measure now goes to the full 14-member council on Monday, March 22.
The original ban proposal got watered down to win over merchants and plastic bag manufacturers, who have been sparring with city and state lawmakers around the country to keep their products from being outlawed or taxed. The new council measure lets Baltimore food sellers keep using flimsy plastic bags at checkout counters if they enroll in a city "plastic bag reduction program." The program requires them to tout recycling and offer to sell customers sturdy reusable shopping bags.
That's exactly what a lot of large supermarket and chain retailers already are doing. And recycling of plastic bags and film (such as dry cleaner bags) has increased by 28 percent nationwide since 2005, according to a new report released by the American Chemistry Council, which represents plastic bag makers. A council exec calls plastic "a valuable resource - too valuable to waste." The industry has launched a campaign to boost the recycling rate to 40 percent in the next five years.
Though the industry proclaims bag recycling is at an all-time high and rising, its own release indicates how far it has to go. The same report cites the Environmental Protection Agency's estimate that just 13 percent of the bags and film dispensed nationally gets recycled.
Council members who originally backed a bag ban or fee (aka tax) say they're willing to try this softer approach if it means they can get something on the books, finally after years of study and debate. And they're hopeful it will lead to at least some decline in plastic bag use, which they believe should reduce opportunities for the flimsy sacks to wind up festooning trees or floating in the Inner Harbor.
Many "mom and pop" stores on Baltimore's street corners, it's suggested, may find the bag reduction program too big a hassle, since it requires merchants to post signs and offer reusable bags for sale at their checkout counters. Participating store owners also have to file semi-annual reports to City Hall on how many plastic and paper bags they've bought, sold and recycled. And there's the matter of the fee - merchants can enroll in the reduction program free of charge until Sept. 1, after which it'll cost $500.
So that's where the partial ban comes in: Those who don't get with the program will have to switch to using paper bags only - or risk being cited and fined $250 and up if caught still using plastic.
Proponents of the half-ban say they'll give it a couple years to show results. If it doesn't, they say they'll dust off their discarded bids for an outright ban or for raising customers' consciousness by charging a fee for every disposable bag they ask for at the checkout counter. Shoppers in the District of Columbia have slashed their demand for carryout bags by half since the city started requiring food sellers to charge a nickel for each on Jan. 1.
Timing is everything, it seems. Interestingly, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake had recently signaled her willingness to consider a similarly low bag fee here, as long as there was some exemption for the city's poorest residents. The DC experience suggests it doesn't take much of a fee to make consumers ask themselves if they really need a carryout bag. And it might have raised upwards of $1 million for a city that's struggling with a huge budget deficit.
But Rawlings-Blake had come out last year, as council president, against the council bill that would have charged customers 25 cents per bag. By the time she'd indicated a softening of her position, the fee bill, pushed by Councilman Bill Henry, had been essentially shelved in favor of working out something with the merchants and bag industry.
Baltimore's bag half-ban could still get upstaged by statewide legislation, of course. Legislators from the Washington suburbs, joined by a few from Baltimore, are pushing a DC-like fee bill in Annapolis. But it's a long shot at best. As reported last week by WYPR's Joel McCord, the bag industry and merchants were joined in opposition to it by the state Department of the Environment, with a spokeswoman the agency lacks the resources to do the public education campaign called for in the bill.
Comments
I am still undecided about how I feel about this decision. Well, only time will tell if people will begin to recycle and use less bags on their own without the coersion of it all. Stay Tuned...
- Maurizio Maranghi -
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Posted by: Maurizio Maranghi | March 17, 2010 6:44 PM
wet paper bags don't hold up too well in the rain and snow. that's why I quit using disposables a long time ago. they always fall apart on you at the worst possible moment.
I got coffee sacks for 20 cents each, ten years ago.... they still work perfectly. even in the rain and snow.
Posted by: lee.watkins | March 17, 2010 8:41 PM
I don't think that the proposed legislation will do a whole lot, except add needless layers of bureaucracy. Does City Hall really need semi-annual reports on compliance with a bag policy?
The best way to encourage people to change their behavior is through economic incentive -- either a negative incentive (tax) or a positive incentive (refund for reusing bags). Some merchants, like Giant, already give a refund to customers who reuse bags.
I'd favor a tax on both paper and plastic bags. Customers would quickly learn to bring their own reusable bags when they can (including old paper and plastic bags) -- and in cases when it's simply not possible to bring a bag, customers would still be able to shop. As an added benefit, the city would get some revenue, which could help offset the environmental costs of plastic bags. Everyone wins.
Posted by: Jake | March 18, 2010 9:23 AM
Why not simply mandate that the bags be biodegradable - such as PLA (polylactic acid made from corn). This would fix the issue of bags getting into the streams and bay and at the same time would allow the use of plastic bags.
I don't think cutting down a tree is preferable to using plastic.
Posted by: rosiedean | March 23, 2010 7:31 AM
Unfortunately, PLA requires pretty high heat sustained over longer periods of time to decompose --- you can't just stick it in your backyard pile and expect to fertilize your plants with it in a few months.
Posted by: Liz Kay | March 26, 2010 10:13 AM
Why exactly should anyone be bending over backwards to accommodate the plastic bag industry? They make an unnecessary, polluting, carbon-intensive product which needs to become obsolete. This idea that the government can't ban harmful practices because it would put some unscrupulous manufacturer out of business is ridiculous. If the product has no redeeming value, get rid of it!
Posted by: badplanner | March 29, 2010 10:27 AM
This is true - my comment was meant more to address the issue of plastic bags that don't make it into the trash - rivers streams, etc. From the article I read (can't find it now) there are plenty of bacteria that are more than happy to break it down and consume the lactic acid.
Germany had industrial scale composting - a dumpster in the neighborhood where one would drop kitchen scraps. I have a back yard composter (that gets pretty hot in the summer) - perhaps we need a community based approach to composting.
Posted by: rosiedean | March 30, 2010 6:51 AM
Paper or Plastic? I have the anwer: www.PaperNorPlastic.com I've been using their reusable bags for years, and they are the best ever. Helping our environment and keeping the city clean sounds like a win-win to me.
Posted by: begreen | March 31, 2010 12:54 AM