Environmental Nuisance or Grocery-Store Necessity?
Two years ago, Gov. Jerry Brown foreshadowed the beginning of the end for plastic bags in California. 鈥淲e鈥檙e the first to ban these bags, and we won鈥檛 be the last,鈥� Brown wrote as he signed Senate Bill 270, outlawing single-use plastic bags at grocery stores and other retail establishments in California. Looking back, he may have spoken too soon.
Almost immediately after Brown signed the bill, plastic companies launched a campaign to overturn the law through a referendum on the 2016 general election ballot. The referendum automatically halted the law from taking effect in July 2015, pushing it off until voters weigh in at the polls in November.
The plastic bag industry, calling itself the American Progressive Bag Alliance, has raised $6.1 million to fight the statewide ban in California, one of several battlefronts in a war pitting environmentalists against plastic manufacturers across the country.
鈥淭hey are desperately trying to protect the profits they make from selling plastic bags, and they are very concerned about the 10 billion bags that are sold in California,鈥� said Mark Murray, a proponent of the bag ban and executive director of Californians Against Waste. 鈥淐ertainly if it passes in California, there are a number of states that would embrace the policy.鈥�
Under SB 270, grocers must charge customers at least 10 cents to buy a recycled paper bag or reusable grocery bag. The law requires stores to use the money to cover the costs of providing the alternative bags or of materials that encourage consumers to use reusable bags. The plastic bag industry describes the 10-cent charge as a 鈥渉idden tax increase on California consumers.鈥�
Since October 2014, out-of-state bag corporations Advance Polybag Inc., Formosa Plastics Corp., Superbag Corp. and Hilex Poly Co. have given at least $1 million each to convince voters that the law is a 鈥渟pecial interest sweetheart deal.鈥� Hilex Poly of South Carolina, which has given $2.8 million, is the single largest donor to the campaign.
Those who want to ban bags have far less money. Five committees funding the Yes on 67 campaign have raised $1.5 million.
But they are counting on the fact that many Californians are already adjusting to living without plastic grocery bags. More than 150 California towns and counties have bag ban ordinances, a number that has grown in 2016. A statewide ban would apply only to communities without local bag bans, and many voters are already changing their habits.
A survey conducted by the city of San Jose a year after it enacted a bag ban in 2012 determined that use of reusable bags at grocery stores climbed from 3.6 percent of all bags before the ban to 62.4 percent. Shoppers were also more inclined to carry their groceries than pay for a paper bag. Roughly 19 percent of shoppers went bag-free before the ban, which shot up to 43 percent post-ban.
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