A proposal to ban plastic bags in Marin grocery stores and retail outlets is getting a big boost from a study Green Cities California commissioned as a counterpunch to the American Chemistry Council, which has been throwing roadblocks in front of bag-ban proposals across the state.

The proposal in Marin would institute a ban on plastic bags at checkout counters in grocery stores. It also would ban retail businesses from packaging customers' purchases in plastic bags. That means no more plastic bags when shoppers pay for their merchandise at Nordstrom, Macys or anywhere else. The ban, however, would not extend to plastic produce bags in grocery stores, dry-cleaning bags or the bags used in pharmacies. Banning bags in pharmacies would violate a federal mandate that ensures health information privacy, including the right to keep those prescription bottles confidential.

In an overall effort to discourage the use of single-use bags, the proposal also would place a fee on paper bags. The current incarnation of the proposal sets the fee at 15 cents per paper bag.
Backers of the proposal would like to see each city in Marin, as well as the county, enact a comprehensive bag-ban ordinance that would extend throughout all jurisdictions. A tall order. Fairfax is the only city in the county that has banned plastic bags.

Fairfax gained that distinction when voters in the town approved a ban on plastic bags in restaurants and retail stores. Before the vote, in 2007, the town council had proposed a ban on plastic bags. It wasn't long before bag manufacturers threatened to sue the town.

Plastics manufacturers said Fairfax had violated the California Environmental Quality Act rules that call for an environmental impact report. The town could not call for a ban on only plastic bags without assessing the environmental consequences of such an action. A proper review would consider the effects on a ban of plastic and paper bags, biodegradable bags and other bag alternatives, the manufactures said, and the town had done nothing to move in that direction.

Conducting an environmental review to meet CEQA guidelines can cost in the neighborhood of $50,000 to $250,000. That's an expensive neighborhood. Even on the low end of the cost scale, a town like Fairfax might find it difficult to muster the funds. That didn't go unnoticed by the American Chemistry Council and the packaging industry. But Fairfax took the bag ban issue and put it on the ballot, where it received a 79 percent vote from residents. Going to the ballot also blocked the industry move to require an environmental report.

The plastics industry has been fighting moves up and down the state to ban single-use plastic bags, and the threat of a suit filed against an entity for violating the CEQA guidelines has been a recurring tactic. When the San Jose City Council passed one of the strictest bag bans in the country, it held off full implementation until 2011 for a full legal and environmental review. The San Jose ban prohibits grocery stores from offering most plastic and paper bags. The ban in San Jose is a single-use ban, not aimed solely at plastic bags. The ordinance allows retailers to give out paper bags made with at least 40 percent recycled material if retailers charge a fee for them.

In Marin, a coalition comprising Green Sangha, EcoMom Alliance, IReuse.com and Teens Turning Green kicked off an effort in December to enact a bag ban that would extend across city jurisdictions and include the county. They gathered support from sustainability groups and environmental organizations. County supervisors Charles McGlashan and Susan Adams were on hand Dec. 19 for a kick-off event that marked the start of a Bring Your Own Bag community education program. McGlashan and Adams and other bag-ban supporters wanted county supervisors and city councils to enact bag bans by Earth Day on April 22. A sour economy and lack of political support slowed the initial effort.

But the move toward single-use bag bans has been gaining momentum around the world, and California is no exception. Playing a major role in moving the concept of bag bans closer to fruition across the state is Green Cities California. The organization is a coalition of governmental jurisdictions dedicated to fostering sustainability through collaborative action. Members include Berkeley, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Sacramento, San Diego San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica--and the county of Marin. The idea is to share a best-practices approach taken in each jurisdiction and spread the experiences and lessons learned.

Among those lessons is a method the organization is working on to block the American Chemistry Council tactic of forcing prohibitively expensive environmental reviews of bag bans.

Back in 2007, San Francisco passed the first plastic-bag ban in the state. Over in Oakland, Carol Misseldine (married to McGlashan) was the sustainability director for then Mayor Jerry Brown. "I thought, you know, Oakland should do the same thing," says Misseldine, who now is Green Cities California coordinator and the sustainability coordinator in Mill Valley. "So we also adopted a plastic-bag ban--and immediately got sued by the American Chemistry Council. And then every single city, and there have been dozens, that has adopted plastic-bag bans has been sued" or faced with that threat.

San Francisco was able to enact its ban unencumbered by legal threat, Misseldine adds, because the American Chemistry Council didn't yet "have their act together." San Jose, she says, "negotiated" with the American Chemistry Council to keep the ban there restricted to grocery stores until completing that city's environmental impact report. As proposed, the San Jose ban was intended to cover all retail outlets.

The foundation of the ACC argument rested on a seemingly reasonable premise: If a city bans plastic bags, the prohibition could result in people using more paper bags, and in several key areas paper bags are worse environmentally than plastic bags. "And we said they're right," says Misseldine. "I think the American Chemistry Council thought we would all just go back to plastic bags, which of course is not an option because plastic bags are just plain evil. We know that from the garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean."

In the middle of the Pacific, a clump of garbage circulates slow death for Marine animals and the ocean environment. The garbage patch, which scientists believe is doubling every decade, comprises all manner of material, but plastic is a principal component. Recent research confirms that gyres like the one in the Pacific now circulate in all the world's oceans. Although plastic bags by volume contribute a relatively small amount of the gyres, the bags still present a major environmental threat.

In June 2009, Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, called for a global ban on plastic bags. "Single-use bags, which choke marine life, should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere. There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere."

In agreeing with the American Chemistry Council that a look at environmental alternatives related to bag bans would be instructive, but mindful of the cost to local jurisdictions, Green Cities California pushed for what's called a master environmental assessment. It's not an environmental impact report, but an MEA contains about 80 percent of the data used in a final environmental report--and it meets CEQA guidelines.

The California Ocean Protection Council had issued a marine debris report that called for cities to enact plastic-bag bans, but cash-strapped cities proposed that the Protection Council, a statewide agency, could compile a statewide master environmental assessment. In spring 2009, members of Green Cities California lobbied for the statewide master environmental assessment, and the Protection Council accepted the concept. The Protection Council found funding, developed guidelines for the assessment and found a consultant to compile the report. But just before the consultant was about to start work, Misseldine learned that, due to the state's financial deficit, the MEA was toast, cut from the budget.

"There was such overwhelming grief in the environmental community because this was going to be our lodestone. This is what we needed." After a few days of disorientation, Green Cities decided to raise the funds on its own for the statewide MEA. Misseldine sent out emails to cities and foundations asking for $5,000 donations. "We raised almost $100,000 that way. That paid for the report. It paid for my time. It paid for reproduction of the report. And it may even pay for some support to help develop (individual) EIRs. It is a testament to the cities that they really wanted this to go. It was the easiest fundraising I have done in the 30 years I have been fundraising."

ICF International's Sacramento office completed the master assessment, which went public earlier this month. "This is a first-of-its-kind comprehensive compilation of existing studies on bags aligned within the context of CEQA, which makes it useful in the preparation of local environmental impact reports," says Terry Rivasplata, technical director at ICF, recognized as a leading consulting firm on CEQA guidelines.

The master assessment is a document that essentially collects existing vetted studies, with an emphasis on product life-cycle studies. Among its findings is the not-so-surprising information that of all types of single-use bags, plastic bags create "the greatest impact on litter." When San Francisco passed its bag ban, it used supporting research that showed every plastic bag cost the city 17 cents by the time the bag had ended its product cycle. Even for people not so simpatico with marine mammals, the societal costs of disposing of plastic bags sometimes makes an impression.

The master assessment also supports the argument that paper bags pose their own hazards. Although paper bags "are recycled at a significantly higher rate" than plastic bags, the paper variety produces "significantly larger greenhouse gas emissions and results in greater atmospheric acidification, water consumption and ozone production than plastic bags."

Biodegradable plastic bags, although more eco-friendly than other plastic bags, pose significant environmental consequences during manufacture, including greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the bags will degrade only under compostable conditions, meaning that if the bag ends up blowing on the surface or in the marine environment, it has an impact the same as other plastic bags.

Reusable bags present the least environmental consequence, according to the ICF report. "Assuming the bags are reused at least a few times, reusable bags have significantly lower environmental impacts, on a per use basis, than single-use bags. Some of the reviewed (information indicates) that use of the non-woven plastic reusable bag results in particularly large environmental benefits."

Encouraging people to move to reusable is the key. Putting a 15-cent fee on plastic bags dropped use in Ireland by about 90 percent. But in California AB2449 prohibits charging a fee for plastic bag. But a fee can be attached to paper bags, thus the proposal to charge 15 cents for paper bags in Marin. AB2449, which expires in 2013 unless renewed, set up the plastic bag recycling system at grocery stores. The Chemistry Council tagged onto it the prohibition against charging a fee for plastic bags.

Findings in the environmental assessment already are playing a part in crafting bag bans across the state, including the effort under way in Marin. A bill in the state Legislature would ban plastic bags and impose a fee of 25 cents on paper bags, but backers of the Marin effort will continue the effort on a parallel local level, not counting on the Legislature to successfully set the bag-ban course.

Easing retailers and consumers into the reusable paradigm with as little pain as possible is the key to success. "A lot of countries have already (enacted bag bans)," says Misseldine. "China banned plastic bags." There's a bag ban in Australia, in Africa. "It's not like we're leading the pack here."

In 2002, the first country in the world to ban plastic bags took action--Bangladesh banned plastic bags because they clogged drains and contributed to flooding.

Contact the writer at peter@pseidman.com.

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