Plastic Bag Ban On The Long Beach City Council Agenda Tonight
- Details
- By Ryan ZumMallen
- | Tuesday, 07 December 2010 22:00
UPDATE 9:58am | The Long Beach City Council last night approved the drafting of an ordinance banning plastic bags at citywide stores, 6-2 (Neal and Gabelich dissenting, Schipske absent). The ordinance will be based on one recently passed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, and will be brought back to the City Council for revision in January.
10:16am Tuesday | The Long Beach City Council will draw the eyes of surrounding cities and counties tonight when it decides whether or not to move forward with an effort to ban plastic bags.
The item, proposed by Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal and backed by 1st District Councilmember Robert Garcia and 3rd District Councilmember Gary DeLong, would direct the City Manager to draft an ordinance similar to the one recently passed in Los Angeles County. It would ban plastic carryout bags at supermarkets and grocery stores while imposing a 10-cent charge to customers who use paper bags - clearly an attempt to steer people toward reusable, usually canvas, bags.
There would be an exemption for customers involved in either the Supplemental Food Program or the California Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children.
Large stores would have to comply with the ordinance by July 1, 2011 while all others must comply by January 1, 2012.
If the motion is approved tonight, the City Manager will draft the ordinance and bring it back to the City Council for final approval before it is implemented. The City Manager would also be directed to develop a public education campaign with a website and hotline for businesses and residents.
At least one councilmember has differing views on the way a ban should be handled, as 5th District Councilmember Gerrie Schipske writes in a recent blog that she supports a ban similar to the one in San Francisco, a more gradual process of "moving away from plastic bags to compostable bags without any tax or fee passed along to the consumer for this switch." She also proposes that City Hall stop using bottled water and plastic bags, while the Convention Center should stop using plastic cups, plates, forks and spoons "if my colleagues really want to deal with the growing pollution from plastic."
Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe supports plastic bag bans, but also says there are better ways to do it.
“While I support the elimination of single-use bags, if there is going to be a ban, I believe it should be done at a statewide level, as the Board previously supported in AB 1998," Knabe says. "Rather than being punitive, we should provide incentives to encourage businesses to develop creative, green solutions, and therefore jobs, to our environmental challenges.”
Opponents of the ban say that the associated costs would hurt local businesses. Former Long Beach Post columnist Dennis Smith has some thoughts along these lines in his recent blog. Current columnist Greggory Moore expressed his views on the subject in this recent column.
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Disclosure: Shaun Lumachi is under contract with the Office of Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe.
Fingers crossed!
Government needs to get off the backs of people and let the voters decide. Or do the right thing and compromise with a redemption value!! What is so difficult about that???
Why can't we take a problem like this to spur new technologies (like biodegradable bags and yes, I know it already exists) that in the long run has the same effect of eliminating the trash and creating more jobs.
This ordinance and anything like it should be at the state level anyhow, as I'll just go to Orange County to get my groceries and lots and lots of plastic bags. And when i LA County, I'll just decline to pay for paper and ask for help to my car....
it would be great to have styrofoam and plastic plates & silverware from business be gone too but i understand that things need to be started on a small scale so the understanding begins.
business's should be happy about this because they no longer have to pay for the bags or even warehouse them in some capacity.
i have also seen the mentality of a lot of the younger counter persons in retail as well as food stores ask if i want a bag or even need one. so the thought process has begun, just slow going.
:)
I am a fourth generation Californian, and I and my family have never received unemployment benefits or government, state, or county aid. However, if for some reason I or a family member falls on hard times and needs aid, none of us will not automatically become "illegal."
Dear Editor:
I question the veracity of some of the "facts" published in the P-T article on plastic bags. One "fact" was that plastic bags make up "25 percent of the county's litter stream." That would mean 25% of most trash trucks, trash cans, and dumpsters would be plastic bags. Simple visual observations tells us this is not true and an inflated number used by ban supporters. One "fact" is that Californians use 19 million plastic bags per year, and also that they generate 147,038 tons of waste per year. For these numbers to equate each plastic bag must weight fifteen and a half pounds. Apparently another set of inflated statistics. Finally, the "fact" that "Californians throw away 600 plastic bags per second" would mean over 2 million per hour, or almost 52 million per day. How can we throw away 52 million per day in California and use only 19 million? Especially if they weigh over fifteen pounds apiece?
Once again elected officials in California take inflated statistics from alleged experts to create an intrusive law (see AB 32). Those of us who act responsibly, re-use and recycle our plastic bags are made to pay for those who feel litter is fine and part of their neighborhoods and throw their plastic bags and other trash in the streets, alleys and sidewalks. Congratulations to the grocers in Signal Hill, Lakewood, Seal Beach and other border cities for the increased business they will do when Long Beach City Council bans the fifteen pound plastic bags.
Dennis C. Smith
Long Beach, CA
Here's my letter on the subject that was printed in the P-T last week:
You present the plastic grocery bag issue as a controversy between the interests of environmentalists, who worry about the long-term effects of the bags, and the interests of bag manufacturers, who worry about their businesses and jobs. But you neglect the most important interest of all -- the interest of every one of us in retaining the freedom and liberty to make our own individual choices about what we sell, buy, and use in a free society.
If there are groups on either side of an issue who want to influence those choices, let them do their best to persuade us to choose what they think is right; but the choice must be ours to make. It is not the role of the government to make those choices for us.
And I'm sorry - you're going to shop in OC so you can get free bags? That makes a lot of sense. What are you, four years old. You dont get your way and so you just do something spiteful to express anger? Dinosaurs.
"let the voters decide" - uh, they did. They elected this council. It's called republicanism.
This really ticks me off. Sometimes, you're in a hurry and have to buy something on your way home from work and ooopps, you forget your bag. LAME...
Leave it to that broad suja and her cronies to come up with this.
When I don't like something, I'll express it and find a solution such as shopping in OC, as it's the same distance for me to the nearest market or Target in Long Beach. By doing that I'm stating my tax dollar is going some where else. By stating I'll decline a paper bag and ask for help, I'm using up valuable union employee time that will cost the store more in unproductive time than to just give me the silly 10 cent bag.
Get with the program. It's the 21st century. These little conveniences are killing the planet. Maybe you don't care what you leave the grandkids, but I do. Get over it! Humanity survived without these bags for centuries. We'll be just fine.
Oh and there's no reason people on welfare shouldn't have to pay the fee too! Reusable bags cost a $1 and I'm sure that's not going to make or break them.
Dennis - it's 19 BILLION bags, which means about a hundredth of a pound per bag. Now you say "oops, sorry"
Doubtful that they really care about strengthening the city. They would rather control people. Now they want to tell retailers they can not give something away...like paper bags.
Wanna talk about America? There it is: Dont take away my FREE and CONVENIENT bag just to protect waterways from litter that WILL NEVER BIODEGRADE. EVER. No, I dont care 0- I just want my free convenient stuff.
Newsflash: The true cost of these bags INCLUDES clean up costs which are borne not by the bag users or the supermarkets but by taxpayers. If you oppose this ban you are essentially demanding that taxpayers subsidize the true cost of the bags.
Really, that true cost should be reflected at the register, but state law bans fees on these bags, so banning them is the only option.
Does the council have better things to do? Well, do you have better things to complain about? In any case, this in no way precludes doing other things; if you didnt notice, tonight's agenda had 32 items on it. None were removed to make room for the bag ban. It's not a zero-sum game, legislating.
Glad this happened. Our grandkids will thanks us. None of them will say "why cant i get a free, taxpayer subsidzed bag at the market" but if we didnt ban these bags they all would ask "why did your generation destroy every last bit of open space and pollute all our rivers instead of growing up and carrying your own bag like 99% of humanity has done since time began!"
What a bunch of "crap"...all I want is for my city government to provide the basic services, such as police & fire protection, picking up my trash, repairing the roads and then stay out of my life!!!
Ok, now we're gonna have a bag ban so I need some facts to better educate myself: How is this ban going to enforce the upstream cities to contain their trash? How will this ban prevent going to Orange County then releasing the bags back into the Long Beach environment? Why wasn't this important issue addressed and resolved at the state level to insure statewide compliance? What will be the fiscal impact to statewide businesses?
And please, somebody tell me why on earth is a person on welfair exempted?
And lastly, can someone explain to me what Summer meant in their comparing this matter to parking in a handicap zone....
For example, when govt imposes something you DON'T like, you kick and scream and cry about how oppressive it is.... yet when the govt imposes something you DO like, now all of the sudden you're happy about it, and even mocking others who are objecting to govt impositions.
Again, this is why the liberal state of California is so in debt, why unemployment is so high, and why so many businesses have left. But hey, don't let reality stop you from another "in your face" moment eh?
Ah the genius of intellectual liberals. Always so much smarter than the rest of us....
Hopefully the $.10 surcharge will go to cleaning up waterways, parks, and other public areas that are fouled by people's stupidity and carelessness. You're really going to drive an extra 3-5 miles (way more than $.10 per mile, BTW) simply because you're too flippin' lazy to bring a bag with you when you shop? Unbelievable!
If you think $.10 is expensive, ask the City's public works department how much of our tax dollars they spend on an annual basis, keeping our beaches, parks, streets, and storm drains clean because people throw their trash in the gutter or can't walk the extra twenty feet to the trash can...
Paper bags-which I love-help deforest our lands and the cloth bags (some so chic)or harder reusable plastic bags that can be found at Trader Joe's etc. are all made abroad and have been found to have lead content in materials. Plus when stuff spills in the cloth bags--it smells and is full of germs. What to do--take a clean white pillowcase with you to the store--and fill that up with your groceries!! Easy to wash --make sure it's 100 % cotton though.
The state gave retailers a chance to self-regulate on this issue and they have blown it. We have a right to keep our rivers and beaches clean.
Big government? Try China.
Lead in bags? That's illegal under this ordinance.
Jobs? The plastic bag companies are already retooling to make canvas bags?
Groceries more expensive? How so - the markets no longer have to pay for these bags without charging for them.
Whine and moan whine and moan. Poor babies cant get their free bags. Awwwwwwwww.
You know, crime creates job for cops - maybe we should all committ crimes
And think of all the fire men who lose their jobs if we prevent fires with smoke alarms
And we shouldnt tax cigarettes; lung cancer employs oncologists!
give us a break. You dont create policy based on what creates jobs; you create jobs based on what serves the community. These bags are a deteriment and they should go; the factories can switch to canvas easily.
petroluem sucks!
http://www.ProjectGreenBag.com
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http://twitter.com/projectgreenbag