Newest plastic bag ban

Source: Surfrider Foundation

After a false start three years ago, Delhi, India's capitol city, will soon have one of the most extensive bans on plastic products out there. Plastic bags lie strewn in city alleys, clogging drainage pipes, harming cows that eat them along with the garbage that they nibble on and offer a prime breeding ground for harmful bacteria and disease. The updated ban now prohibits manufacturing of plastic bags and use of plastic sheets, films or covers for packaging books, magazines or cards.

 


San Francisco Update:
 
The City of San Francisco won an important case in Superior Court on September 12th when Judge Teri L. Jackson upheld passage of a local ordinance extending San Francisco's ban on plastic checkout bags to all retail stores and restaurants, and imposing a 10-cent charge on other bags provided to consumers. The "Save the Plastic Bag Coalition", an association of plastic bag manufacturers and distributors brought suit to invalidate the law, arguing that the City had not properly complied with provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act and that the California Retail Food Code preempts the law because prohibitions on plastic bags for retail food facilities amount to a "health and sanitation standard." The court disagreed. The new "bigger, better" San Francisco ordinance applies to all stores and restaurants instead of just supermarkets and large pharmacies. It also adds a fee on paper bags which was not implemented in the first San Francisco bag ordinance.

Plastic Bags

Every day, my wife, our dog and I walk Tubbs Inlet (East side of beach). We start at 18th. Street and loop around to the inlet channel. Nice walk, every so often we find Letter Olives, Welks, Sand Dollars, Shark Eyes, even a Scotch Bonnets (NC state shell). Problem with Scotch Bonnets is Hermit Crabs have been in every one we find, meaning they get tossed back into the inlet. 

We also find evidence of man: lots of sunglasses, plastic bottles, red or blue plastic party cups, cigarett butts, beer cans, broken beer bottles (not many thank goodness) and plastic bags. While everything else is impossible to keep off Sunset Beach, plastic bags are not. 

 If you boat or kayak our tidal areas, you will see plastic bags hanging from marsh reeds, laying in oyster beds and sometimes just floating by. 

Our first thoughts are to approach Sunset Beach Town Council and to learn if there can be a process to ban bags from our area.

Wrightsville Beach NC is working towards the same kind of resolution, as are other states. Hawaii is very close as is California. 

Ban The Bag California!

Support Assembly Bill 298 to reduce plastic pollution!
The California State Legislature is considering a bill that would ban plastic checkout bags at supermarkets, retail pharmacies and convenience stores statewide starting in 2014. Assembly Bill 298 would also require those retailers to provide reusable bags for sale and charge a fee for recycled paper bags as an incentive for customers to remember their reusable bags.

California could be the first in the nation to pass a statewide plastic bag ban but it won't happen without your support!

Our California coasts are valuable drivers of a tourism industry worth billions of dollars and thousands of jobs in our state. It is important to have sound policies to keep our beaches clean and maintain healthy ecosystems. In fact, over 50 local jurisdictions in California have already seen the importance of this action and banned plastic bags. Please let your State Senator know you support this legislation and a phasing out of plastic checkout bags statewide!

Hawaii first state to ban plastic bags at checkout

Follow @msnbc_us

By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

By now, it’s hardly news when a city bans plastic bags at checkout counters -- but an entire state? That’s happened in Hawaii, where Honolulu County has joined the state’s three other counties to give Hawaii a first-in-the-nation title.

 

"Passing the bans did take an effort -- change always does -- but people seemed to understand the need for such an effort," Robert Harris, director of the Sierra Club's Hawaii chapter, told msnbc.com of the two-year campaign across the islands.

 

The Honolulu County Council approved the ban late last month and Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle, who is also the county executive, initially held back his support, saying he wanted to collect more public input due to enforcement and cost concerns.

 

But when he signed the ban on Thursday, Carlisle was fully committed, especially since retailers were given three years to comply.

 

"This is groundbreaking. By signing this environmentally friendly bill, Honolulu joined our neighbor island counties," Carlisle said. "Hawaii has become the only state in the United States where every county has plastic bag legislation."

 

One man's trash is another man's treasure. Richard Lang and Judith Selby Lang are harvesting the plastic refuse littered on California's Kehoe Beach and turning it into beautiful, unique works of art. NBC's Mike Leonard reports.

 

The county law bans non-biodegradable plastic bags at checkout as well as paper bags that are not at least 40 percent recycled. Retailers in Honolulu County have until July 1, 2015, to make the change.

That date "gives us plenty of time to get ready," Carlisle told msnbc.com. "Retailers will be able to use up their inventory of bags and make arrangements to educate the public on the importance of bringing their own bag."

Live Poll

Q: What do you think about Hawaii's ban on plastic bags?

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I'm for it -- it's a smart environmental move 

 

Kauai and Maui counties already enforce bans, while Hawaii County's ban takes effect on Jan. 17, 2013.

The Sierra Club organized rallies to support the bans, said Harris. "We also lobbied extensively for statewide legislation, which failed, but it helped direct attention to the issue and eventually got the last county to take action."

"Being a marine state, perhaps, we are exposed more directly to the impacts of plastic pollution and the damage it does to our environment," Harris said in explaining the support in all four counties. "People in Hawaii are more likely to be in the water or in the outdoors and see the modern day tumbleweed -- plastic bags -- in the environment."

Getting shoppers to switch to reusable bags is another matter.
Island supermarkets, which said they would prefer to charge a nickel or dime for plastic bags rather than live with a ban, argued that most shoppers have shifted to paper bags, which have their own environmental impact and increase store costs.

The Surfrider Foundation, which also lobbied for the bans as part of its mission to protect beaches and oceans, acknowledged the challenge ahead.

Interactive: The paper or plastic debate
"While we are excited that the plastic bag bans have been enacted, there has been a reported increase in paper bag use from locals," Bill Hickman, the nonprofit's point man in Hawaii for plastics, said in a blogpost Monday. He added that his group might even lobby for a fee on paper bags at some point.
The state-level legislation, which would have charged users 10 cents per plastic bag, died a quiet death earlier this month, just two weeks after being introduced. A statewide ban also recently failed in California, noted Harris.

Ted Duboise, publisher of PlasticBagBanReport.com, said he doesn't think any state is close to a ban enforced at the state level. "Too much political hem haw," he told msnbc.com.
As for a national ban, don't hold your breath, said Duboise, citing "labor, lobbyist and plastic industry interests."

Still, the number of areas with bans or bag fees has grown across the U.S. and the globe. Dozens of areas on every continent but Antarctica are listed on an interactive map at PlasticBagBanReport.com.
So is the lesson here that it's easier to get bans at the local level?

"In Hawaii, yes," said Harris. "And looking to the mainland, I would suspect the same."

Wrightsville Beach

By Kate Elizabeth Queram
kate.queram@starnewsonline.com

Published: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 12:48 p.m.

Last Modified: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 1:10 p.m.

Officials in local beach towns have begun taking steps to urge New Hanover County to consider a ban on environmentally-hazardous plastic shopping bags.

Both the Wrightsville Beach Board of Aldermen and the Carolina Beach Town Council recently passed resolutions promising to support any efforts by the county to do away with plastic bags.

The resolutions don't place restrictions on the bags at the municipal level, but instead pledge to "support initiatives by New Hanover County to lessen the negative impact of plastic bags on our fragile environment."

Officials said they hope that the pledged hard-and-fast support from the beach towns may be the silver bullet that urges the county to act, either by banning the bags outright or implementing a pay-for-plastic structure, where shoppers fork over a small fee in exchange for the disposable sacks.

"I think that's what the county commissioners are looking for, is support from the beach communities," said Wrightsville Beach Alderwoman Lisa Weeks. "If there's consensus ... I think it's something they'll take a look at."

The use of plastic bags is particularly important to beach-town officials, as the shopping totes frequently end up on the shore and in the water, where they remain indefinitely.

"Plastic is like the new diamond – it's forever," said Sean Ahlum, chair of the Cape Fear Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, who gave presentations about plastic bags to officials in Wrightsville, Carolina and Kure beaches. "They don't biodegrade, they ... break down into smaller and smaller pieces, so it's always present either in our water streams or washing up on beaches.

"And if the plastic breaks down in open ocean, it resembles plankton and phytoplankton, so birds and fish are eating and ingesting plastic."

The presence of plastic on local beaches can also affect tourism, according to Weeks.

"Our tourism and quality of life are very much correlated to the natural beauty of the island and keeping it clean and pristine," Weeks said. "On a weekly basis, I'm picking up bags and trash, and you see them rolling around town."

Despite the environmental risk, some state legislators oppose the idea of a bag ban, saying that complying with the plastic prohibition places an unnecessary financial burden on businesses.

State Sen. Thom Goolsby, R-New Hanover, is the primary sponsor of a bill that, if passed, would repeal the law banning plastic bags along the Outer Banks.

The 2009 law prohibits retailers from using plastic bags unless they're reusable or used for certain products exempted from the law. Additionally, any paper bags provided by businesses must be made from recycled materials.

The bill, which was referred to committee on March 14, asserts that complying with the law is financially difficult for Outer Banks retailers.

But most local officials said they weren't necessarily in favor of an all-out bag ban.

"Other towns and municipalities that enacted these laws and ordinances didn't restrict the use of plastic bags, but required people to pay for them. The idea was to create an incentive for people to bring reusable bags," said Carolina Beach Councilman Dan Wilcox. "That way, it wouldn't inconvenience me to the point where if I go to get groceries and I don't have a reusable bag, I can't shop."

The bag fee could go to the store or to help with environmental clean-up.

"So either way you participate, whether you're paying for a plastic bag or using reusable bags," Wilcox said.

But the swell of seaside support may be dead in the water, as county officials said there are no plans to establish a ban in the near future.

"I don't think it's on the county's radar at all. There's been no discussion at the county level on that," said Commissioner Rick Catlin. "I doubt it's going to be anything that comes up right now."

Kate Elizabeth Queram: (910) 343-2217