Ban on One-Time Use Plastic Bags in California Nears Implementation

Plastic bags are stronger than paper bags, and have long since replaced paper bags, especially in grocery stores and supermarkets. But while these plastic bags are more convenient when carrying plenty of grocery items, wet or dry, the bags eventually became a menace to the environment. They eventually became litter and could be seen everywhere. Tons upon tons of unrecyclable plastic bags have created mountains of trash. Environmentalists in California fear that these plastic bags can injure ocean life when these get washed to sea.

Banned in several areas

Other states, various cities in California, the county of Maui and other municipalities in Hawaii have already banned the use of plastic bags in grocery stores. If the proposal to ban one-time use plastic bags in California passes the legislature and Governor Jerry Brown signs it, California will be the first state to institute the ban state-wide. However, this is still under a compromise agreement with the business leaders in the state.

Compromise

Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat, presented the proposal three years ago but it lacked three votes for it to be passed. Three years ago there were lawmakers that opposed the proposal because their districts had plastic bag manufacturers. On the other hand the grocers, represented by a trade group signed on to the proposed bill. They thought that having a standard that would be implemented state-wide was better than differing rules enacted in different cities.

Negotiations are ongoing right now with the business leaders and lawmakers whose districts have plastic manufacturing operations to come up with a compromise deal that would be beneficial to everyone and push the legislation forward.

Preliminary proposal inclusions

Closing down the plastic bag factories due to the ban will not be an issue. The state of California would provide a grant of close to $2 million to manufacturers. The grant is for factory owners who want to re-tool their factories to produce re-usable plastic bags or paper sacks.

Customers will be paying for the new bags. Although the compromise language is not yet introduced, customers will be charged 10 cents per paper sack. They will be able to purchase thicker reusable plastic bags made of recycled material, which are already available. Even if this is enacted, the existing rules on plastic bag use in San Francisco, West Hollywood and Los Angeles among other cities, would not be pre-empted.

Implementation

Once the proposal becomes law, it gives supermarkets until July 2015 to stop using plastic bags. Smaller stores will have until 2016 to comply.

The bill summary shows 2005 figures of close to 30 billion single-use plastic bags were produced and used in California.

Environmentalists are happy as the law means less waste, less pollution and less litter. On the other hand, industry associations representing the plastic bag manufacturers believe that this will make people lose their jobs and customers paying extra for the bags. Other manufacturing executives said that they are already facing stiff competition from imported reusable plastic bags so the $2 million proposed grant available for training, re-tooling and purchase of new equipment is too small an amount.

Photo credit: Taken by Trosmisiek under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.