“Paper or plastic?” might soon be a question of the past under a proposed ban on single-use paper and plastic bags from the San Luis Obispo County Integrated Waste Management Authority (IWMA).
More than 100 million single-use bags are used in San Luis Obispo County every year according to the proposed ordinance, and the ban aims to reduce the environmental impact of these bags. The ordinance will ban single-use carryout bags as of July 2012, requiring consumers to bring their own bags or cardboard boxes for grocery shopping.
The IWMA has considered the ban for several years, IWMA Board of Directors chair Jim Patterson said. The ban is considered to be especially important due to the high level of plastic pollution along the coast in areas such as in San Luis Obispo County, Patterson said.
“Single-use plastic bags are a nightmare in landfills,” Patterson said. “It has become a problem, especially in coastal areas, because they pollute the ocean and are detrimental to marine life.”
The IWMA waited to move forward with the ordinance because a similar ban was proposed by the state legislature.
“We were thinking that we’d wait and see if it was implemented statewide, but that didn’t happen,” Patterson said.
After the statewide ban on plastic bags failed to become a reality, the IWMA further hesitated to implement the ban because of a court ruling that any ban on plastic bags would have to be accompanied by an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) in order to be constitutional.
Finally, at its meeting on July 13, the Board of Directors decided to avoid the EIR issue entirely by banning not only plastic bags, but paper as well, Patterson said.
The next day, the California Supreme Court ruled that an EIR was not necessary for a ban on plastic bags. The Supreme Court’s ruling might alter the proposed ordinance, but that’s not absolutely certain, Patterson said.
Any changes or concerns will be discussed by the IWMA at its next meeting on Sept. 14.
The proposed ordinance will be beneficial for local waste management and green organizations. Richard Hawley of Cambria GreenSpace also said he sees pollution from plastic areas in the rural areas of the north coast of San Luis Obispo County, and the pollution on the north coast is merely a small piece of a worldwide problem.
“If you look at it on a global level, it’s a huge issue and it affects small little counties like ours,” Hawley said.
The convenience of having cheap carryout bags actually leads to higher costs elsewhere, such as clean-up and waste management, Hawley said. The ban would help reduce the cost of waste management for those in the county, Hawley said.
The ordinance is a chance for San Luis Obispo County to lead the way on another social issue, much like the recent smoking ban, Hawley said.
“If a little county can do it, a big county can do it just as easily,” Hawley said.
The ban may face some public resistance initially, said Scolari’s Non-food Manager Kelly Thompson. Thompson said local stores should be open to the ban.
“I think the stores will be happy about it because that’s one last thing they have to buy,” Thompson said.
The IWMA intends to help ease the introduction of the ordinance through a public education campaign on the harmful results of using plastic bags and by giving out reusable bags to consumers, Bill Worrell of the IWMA said.
Already, several stores and regions in California have chosen not to carry single-use bags, such as the Albertsons in Carpinteria. Shoppers learn to adjust their routine accordingly, Worrell said.
“Do you ever go to the grocery store without your money to pay?” Worrell said. “No. You just get used to it.”