L.A. County poised to pass strict ban on plastic grocery bags [Updated]

Los Angeles County supervisors were poised Tuesday to impose one of the most stringent bans on disposable grocery bags in the country.

The proposal calls for a ban on plastic grocery bags and a 10-cents-per-paper-bag surcharge in unincorporated areas of the county -- areas not governed by a city council -- which cover a population of nearly 1.1 million people.

The ban would be the most restrictive in California and nationwide, said Mark Gold, president of the environmental group Heal the Bay.

San Francisco's ban is less restrictive because it does not ban bioplastic bags made from corn starch, which do not biodegrade in the ocean, and Malibu's ban does not levy a surcharge on paper bags, Gold said.

[Updated at 11:50 a.m.: An earlier version of this post incorrectly attributed Gold's statements to Matthew King, a spokesman for Heal the Bay.]

In contrast, the proposed L.A. County ordinance seeks to end consumers' reliance on disposable bags, either plastic or paper, and move them toward using reusable bags to carry out their groceries.

In advance of the vote, dozens of environmentalists gathered Tuesday in front of the Hall of Administration to rally in support of the ban, cognizant of strong opposition from the plastic-bag manufacturers' lobbying arm and the American Chemistry Council. At least 60 people were at the supervisors' meeting to speak on the topic.

The Legislature had been expected to implement a statewide ban on plastic grocery bags, but the measure failed to pass the state Senate in the final hours of the legislative session at the end of August, amid intense lobbying by the plastic-bag industry.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said the county would have preferred a statewide ban, but is now moving forward on its own.

"These bags end up in our storm drains. They then end up in our oceans. Marine life get caught up in these bags. ... They eat it. It damages marine life," Yaroslavsky said. "It puts our great natural resource, and economic resource, called our coastline and marine life at great risk."

Government figures show that just 5% of plastic bags are recycled.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said the proposed ordinance would be a model for the 88 city councils in L.A. County to adopt, as well as provide a template to push Sacramento to impose a statewide ban.

"We will get this passed statewide," Ridley-Thomas said. "Don’t you dare give up. We've done too much to turn around now."

UPDATE: County passes sweeping ban on plastic grocery bags

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-- Rong-Gong Lin II at the Los Angeles County Hall of Administration

Photo: James Alamillo, left, and Amada Griesbach, both from Heal the Bay, walk down Temple Street in downtown Los Angeles for a rally outside the Hall of Administration in support of a ban on plastic bags. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[penguin]

Are you people seriously that upset about a plastic bag ban? Consumers have shown that they can't regulate themselves in this area and switch to more eco-friendly options... I welcome this ban. If we have to be forced like children to be good stewards of the environment then so be it.

I've never had to purchase any of my reusable bags. Most I got for free over the years and even if I hadn't THEY ONLY COST 99 CENTS.

Grow up.

[Jay]

Many of us shoppers can spend in other counties. I will shop elsewhere as often as possible if this goes through. Sales tax is already too high in Los Angeles County! Apologies to the businesses in Los Angeles County we used to patronize.

The "surcharge" is a new TAX corrupt Los Angeles County government is imposing. Remember controller Richard B. Dixon (search him on LA Times) who robbed LA County of almost a billion dollars ($50 million/year)? He and the supervisors got away with it on a technicality! This was because once illegally granting themselves and county employees a 20% pension increase it was illegal to retract the illegal increase.

[A.E. Poe]

Have any of you idiots ever heard of cloth shopping bags? Did you know that's what people used before there were paper and plastic shopping bags?

[happy shopper]

I live in Orange County and voluntarily have more reusable bags stashed in my trunk than I could possibly fill with groceries in one trip. I also WASH them every few uses. For those of you who are still fearful of germs, I'd rather have a few species of generally innocuous bacteria hanging out on my fruits and veggies than leave them in plastic bags for even 30 minutes anywhere near the southern California sun. You apparently know very little about microbiology (bacteria are EVERYWHERE, naturally) and chemistry (plastics leach BPAs into everything they hold). This movement isn't just about the ocean, you know.

[John]

I don't use plastic bags myself, unless I have no choice, it's not hard to provide my own re-usable cloth bag. I absolutely don't want any government body telling me I can't though. Enough is enough, get out of our lives and clean up your own house first.

[Ned Flanders]

Turns out even reusable bags are bad too. The wrong ones contain lead. Nice. You can read about it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/nyregion/15bags.html?scp=1&sq=reusable%20grocery%20bags&st=cse

Do this: Don't even use bags. Bring two large boxes or plastic totes to the store with you. Leave them in the car. When you check out, have the bagger put your groceries back into the cart. In the parking lot put your groceries into the totes or boxes in your car. No bags, no mess, and nothing to carry into the store. And you can carry all your groceries in the house in two trips instead of 6.

[Eric]

Banning Plastic seems ok, but charging an extra 10cents per bag when tons of families are already barely getting by is just plain greed.

Soon the time will come when Citizens take back what is rightfully theirs....

-Welcome to Los Angeles, the Futures New Wastelands

[Belinda]

We will order plastic bags in bulk and carry them to the store and use them.

[Astonished]

So, they charge you for paper bags which end up in the trash, or reusables, which harbor bacteria and may have undesireable chemicals in them, depending, of course, on where they were manufactured. So tell me the up side to this again?

[Jack Offer]

Next on the list of frequently littered objects to ban: Potato chip bags and news papers.

Glad to see these overpaid bureaucrats continue to stay focused on the real problems facing the county.

[Al]

I remember in the '70s when plastic bags became all the craze because paper bags were supposedly clogging the landfills. Since plastic bags can supposedly be recycled, and paper bags eventually bio-degrade (or so I was always taught), what exactly is the concern about either type of bag? The city where I live has a trash company that takes all its trash (except lawn clippings which are collected seperately) to a MRF (Materials Recovery Facility), where the recyle-able material is supposedly sorted out; which I assume includes plastic bags. Thus, it seems to me that all this is is a new fee (tax?) grab by the Board. Who will monitor the fee collection and how will it be monitored? Where willthe money go? What will the money be used for? Perhaps we should consider a strict ban on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors instead.

[dot]

I recycle those plastic bags. We use them to clean out the cat litter box. The city I live in recycles trash and it goes in the container marked for trash and animal feces. I also put my food garbage in them and they go in the same trash can. I sure would miss them. Glad I live in the OC.