Not everyone’s on board with city’s anti-plastic mantra
DOWNTOWN As he walked across Lincoln Boulevard on his way to Vons, John Blanchette carried a cloth bag in one hand and a plastic bag in the other.
Blanchette said he likes having the option of using both, especially when he’s picking up “soft” items like fresh fruits and vegetables.
“They can leak,” Blanchette said. “It then gets all over the cloth bags, so I tend to use plastic for those kind of items... anything else, I’ll use (the cloth bags).”
If the City Council gets its way, that option may no longer be available for shoppers like Blanchette, who have come to rely on the petroleum-based sacks.
Elected officials on Tuesday voted in favor of a ban on plastic bags at all commercial establishments, that includes large grocery stores like Vons and Albertsons, as well as smaller mom-and-pop stores like Star Liquor on Main Street, where Ramon Gastelum said most of his shoppers prefer plastic because it makes bottles of beer and wine much easier to carry and won’t rip like paper.
“Paper definitely costs more,” Gastelum said. “I don’t know what the impact would be (if stores are forced to do away with plastic). It would definitely mean an increase in cost for me.”
Councilmembers said they supported the ban on plastic bags because of the danger the disposable carriers pose to the environment.
Mark Gold, executive director of Heal the Bay and chair of the city’s Environmental Task Force, said the use of plastic bags, which are often discarded after just a few minutes, is “out of control,” leaving rivers, streams and oceans littered with the material, which can remain in the environment for thousands of years.
Sea turtles and other marine life have been found with plastic bags in their stomachs, mistaking them for food, such as jelly fish. Plastic bags have been found in some of the most remote places on earth, which demonstrates how far the problem has spread, Gold said.
“Look at the LA River, the Ballona and Compton creeks... you will see trees that literally look like plastic bag trees,” Gold said.
A report by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works recently found that six billion plastic bags are used in the county each year.
Fifty years ago, plastic bags — starting first with the sandwich bag — were seen in the U.S. as a more sanitary and environmentally friendly alternative to the deforesting paper bag. That viewpoint has changed dramatically in the last decade, as more studies have examined the damaging affects of plastics.
There is a growing international movement to ban or discourage the use of plastic bags. Countries from Ireland to Australia are cracking down on the bags and action is beginning to stir in the United States, including California.
San Francisco recently passed a ban on the use of plastic bags, becoming the first city to do so in the U.S. Other cities are expected to follow suit, even though there is a state law prohibiting municipalities from passing such legislation.
The law, AB 2449, requires all grocery stores and pharmacy chains with more than 10,000 square feet of retail space to take back and recycle plastic grocery bags. The bill also requires retailers to sell reusable bags, and implement a public education program. All bags must be labeled “Please Return to a Participating Store for Recycling.”
As part of the bill, which went into effect in July, local agencies are preempted from adopting fees or recycling requirements on affected retailers. However, the bill does not say anything about banning the products, opening the door for cities like San Francisco to move forward.
City Councilman Kevin McKeown, who sponsored the motion in favor of a ban, said worries about legal challenges kept the city from moving forward last year when the council approved a ban on Styrofoam containers. But since there seems to be nothing to fear, “the time has come” for Santa Monica to pass its own restrictions.
Still, not everyone is on board. While environmentalists praised the council for their action, the average resident and business owner isn’t as supportive. They know of the environmental dangers posed by the bags, however, they believe an outright ban goes too far.
“I don’t see the reason for banning them,” said Emily Barker, who was loading plastic bags filled with groceries into her car after leaving Vons, which has a plastic bag recycling bin at its entrances and sells black, reusable bags for 99 cents each. “I reuse them as trash bags, I pack my lunches in them when I take them to work … I like plastic bags.
“I think if people just used them more sparingly or reused them more often, it wouldn’t be a problem.”
At Duck Blind Liquors on Montana Avenue, owner Maurice Shevah said banning plastic bags would be bad for business. Paper bags cost 2 to 5 cents more apiece and they are not as durable.
“I have customers who come here who are walking with a cane in one hand,” Shevah said. “They cannot use both hands to carry the paper bags, which can rip pretty easily if you don’t hold them right.”
The California Grocers Association is also opposed to a ban, and instead encourages more recycling and education programs as ways to cut down on pollution.
“We think that’s a better way to go and where we need to focus our resources,” said Dave Heylen, a spokesperson for the association. “We like to provide a variety of choices for our consumers and let them decide, hence the classic paper or plastic.”
Grocery stores, in particular, work on a very small profit margin and forcing them to spend more money on alternatives would hurt them financially, Heylen said. Alternative products such as bags made of corn oil are not as reliable.
That is disputed by manufacturers of alternative materials who say their products perform just as well as plastics and can be made to break down into bio-fuel within 10 days.
The debate is expected to continue when the council discusses an ordinance in the near future. City staff must develop a ban for consideration. No date has been set for that discussion.
In the meantime, the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce will be speaking with its members to get their comments on the issue.
“I think it just comes to being creative,” Blanchette said. “Trader Joe’s holds a drawing every month for those who bring in their own reusable bags. I think incentives like that, maybe a discount on groceries or something, would go a long way towards cutting down on the usage of plastic bags without having to ban them entirely.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 12, 2007. Read the original PDF.