The Los Angeles Times reports:
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to ban plastic
grocery bags in areas of the county under its jurisdiction, endorsing a
broadly worded measure that proponents hope could become a model for
California.
The ban, which goes beyond ordinances adopted in Malibu and San
Francisco, most directly affects 1.1 million people who live outside the
county's incorporated cities. But anyone shopping at stores in such
areas would encounter the new rules.
Opponents suggested they might go to court to try to block the ban
before the first phase takes effect in July, when 67 large supermarkets
and pharmacies must stop providing disposable plastic bags. By January
2012, the ban will cover 1,000 stores throughout the county. The
ordinance also seeks to keep shoppers from turning to paper bags as an
alternative by requiring stores to levy a 10-cent surcharge per paper
bag.
The goal, officials say, is to get people to adopt reusable bags made of
cloth or durable plastic that can be wiped clean. An exception is being
made for produce bags that keep raw vegetables and meats from being
contaminated by other groceries.
"Plastic bags are a pollutant. They pollute the urban landscape. They
are what we call in our county urban tumbleweed," said Supervisor Zev
Yaroslavsky.
He expressed particular concern about bags entering the ocean via the
county's storm drain system, where he said "they end up threatening
rare, valuable, marine life in our oceans and degrading one of this
country's great environmental and economic resources: the Pacific
Coast."
The 3-1 vote was partisan, with the three Democrats—Yaroslavsky,
Gloria
Molina and Mark
Ridley-Thomas—supporting it. It was opposed by Republican Michael
D. Antonovich; Don
Knabe, also a Republican, was absent.
Antonovich expressed concern that small, mom-and-pop shops will be at
disadvantage financially, in part because they won't have access to
volume discounts for paper and reusable bags. He also worried that
low-income people would be forced to buy bags to pick up pet waste or
carry their lunch.
"At a time of economic uncertainty, with a large number of businesses
leaving our state and community, this would not be an appropriate time
... to impose this additional regulation," Antonovich said.
In Los Angeles County alone, 6 billion plastic bags are used each year,
an average of 1,600 bags per household a year. Government figures show
that only about 5% are recycled.
Mark Gold, president of the Santa Monica environmental group Heal the
Bay, said previous county efforts to promote recycling of plastic bags
at grocery stores was a failure.
"You cannot recycle your way out of the plastic bag problem," Gold said.
"The cost of convenience can no longer be at the expense of the
environment."
The proliferation of plastic bags has wreaked environmental havoc. A
Pulitzer Prize-winning Los Angeles Times series in 2006 documented how
plastics were choking the seas. In one region in the Pacific Ocean
halfway between San Francisco and Hawaii, a garbage patch twice the size
of Texas is swirling clockwise, filled with plastic debris that is
ingested by birds and other wildlife.
On Midway Atoll, 40% of albatross chicks die, their bellies full of
trash, The Times reported.
The county's ban is a significant victory for environmental groups,
which suffered a major defeat in Sacramento in August with the failure
of the state Senate to pass a sweeping plastic bag ban. It failed amid
heavy and costly lobbying by plastic bag manufacturers despite winning
the support of the state Assembly and Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
L.A. County's decision to go forward with a ban may leave shoppers
confused and cause headaches for supermarket chains. Without a statewide ban in place, chains will
have to ask customers in unincorporated areas to pay for bags or bring
their own, even as shoppers in cities such as Los Angeles, Pasadena and
Long Beach can continue to expect free disposable bags.
"It would be better and more effective to have a statewide ban rather
than a patchwork of local ordinances," said Dave Heylen, a spokesman for
the California Grocers Assn., which supported the statewide ban
proposed by Assemblywoman Julia Brownley (D- Santa Monica).
"A statewide answer would have been a nice thing," said Ralphs
spokeswoman Kendra Doyel.
Grocers and pharmacies Tuesday were still reviewing the ordinance. None
of them said they had immediate plans to expand the county ban to their
stores in incorporated cities.
Pro-ban advocates were effusive Tuesday about the county's action.
County officials said they plan to lobby the 88 city councils in L.A.
County to also adopt the ordinance. City Council members from Culver
City and Long Beach expressed support for the measure.
The county's ban went further than bans in Malibu and San Francisco,
which do not require a surcharge on paper bags..
"The retailers shifted and went straight to paper, which really didn't
solve the long-term goal, which is to move consumers to reusable bags,"
Heylen said.
In crafting the county ordinance, officials pointed to the success of
the 5-cent-per-disposable-bag surcharge in Washington, D.C., which led
to an 86% drop in disposable bags given to shoppers there.
But Christopher Gallo, 31, who runs a small store in an unincorporated
area near Inglewood, feared his low-income customers would start buying
less to avoid the county's 10-cent surcharge on paper bags.
"The 10 cents … it's just going to kill us," Gallo said.
The ordinance requires stores to provide paper or reusable bags free of
charge to recipients of two state-run supplemental food programs.
The American Chemistry Council, a trade association whose members
include plastic bag makers, warned the county last week that the
proposed ban might be subject to Proposition 26. The initiative, which
passed this month, reclassifies most regulatory fees on industry as
"taxes" requiring a two-thirds vote in government bodies or in public
referendums, rather than a simple majority.
County Counsel Andrea Ordin said Tuesday that the 10-cent surcharge on
paper bags is not a fee covered by Proposition 26 because the revenue
generated is retained by the grocers, not transferred to a government
agency.
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Edward A Kimble
said on November 19, 2010