Free grocery bags targeted for extinction in California

Sacramento Bee ^ | 8/25/8 | Jim Downing

[SmithL]

The plastic grocery bag is fighting for its crinkly life.

From the city of San Francisco to Los Angeles County, more than a dozen local governments around the state have proposed or passed plastic-bag restrictions, ranging from recycling mandates to outright bans.

Now, a proposal in the Legislature would put a 25-cent fee on all disposable bags – paper or plastic – given out at drug and grocery store check stands starting Jan. 1, 2010. It has won key support from the grocery and retail industries and faces its next legislative step today.

Those in favor of the fee, led by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, and a collection of environmental groups, point to dirty oceans, sewers fouled with plastic and millions of dollars in litter-cleanup costs. Opponents – mainly bag-industry and taxpayer organizations – say plastic bags draw more blame than they deserve and the fee would be a burden on consumers.

"People have completely lost their perspective," said Stephen Joseph, a Tiburon lawyer who runs savetheplasticbag.com, an industry group.

Both sides expect a fee would drive shoppers to switch to reusable bags. After Ireland imposed a fee on plastic checkout-counter bags in 2002, their use dropped by about 90 percent.

About 80 percent of bags given out in the state's supermarkets are plastic, according to Californians Against Waste, an advocacy group.

Winning over grocers

Powerful grocery and retail industry groups objected to an early version of the proposal that put a fee only on plastic bags. They worried that stores would be pressured to switch to paper bags, which cost about 8 cents each vs. about 1.5 cents for a plastic bag.

Now that the measure – Assembly Bill 2769 – covers both paper and plastic, though, grocers are behind it.

Big supermarket and drugstore chains would rather have a single statewide standard...

[thefactor]

George Carlin had the best act about this:

"The Earth has been around for over 4 billion years. And we think a couple PLASTIC BAGS are gonna destroy the Earth?! Let me tell you something. The Earth ain't going anywhere...WE ARE!"

[calcowgirl]

Just when you thought they couldn't get worse...

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_2751-2800/ab_2769_bill_20080822_amended_sen_v96.html

   This bill would, on and after January 1, 2010, prohibit a store,
as defined, from providing a single-use carryout bag to a customer
unless the store charges a fee of not less than $0.25 per bag at the
point of purchase. The bill would exempt certain customers from
paying the fee. The bill would establish the Bag Pollution Fund in
the State Treasury and would require a store to remit the single-use
carryout bag fees, less a specified amount, to the State Board of
Equalization for deposit in that fund.  

   The bill would require the Resources Agency and the Department of
Conservation to administer and enforce the single-use carryout bag
provisions and would require the State Board of Equalization to
administer the collection of the fees imposed on those bags. 

   The moneys in the fund would be required to be expended, upon
appropriation by the Legislature, in a specified order of priority,
by the State Board of Equalization to reimburse its costs associated
with collecting the fees, by the Resources Agency and Department of
Conservation for purposes of providing financial assistance for
projects and activities related to mitigating the effects of
single-use carryout bags, and by the California Integrated Waste
Management Board for grants to cities and counties for programs that
encourage and support recycling of single-use carryout bags and
single-use carryout bag pollution prevention and outreach programs.

[John Jorsett]

There are a lot better uses for the plastic.

That's true, oil is too expensive to waste on grocery bags.

Plastic grocery bags are actually made from ethane, a waste product that's removed from natural gas in order to lower its BTUs to acceptable levels.