Do You Want a Bag With That?

After three years of work by environmental groups, advocates, and individuals the Santa Monica City Council finally voted in favor of prohibiting the single-use paper or plastic bag.

The ordinance (2348) went into effect on September 1, 2011. As of now there are eighteen hundred plus (1,870) establishments within the city that are directly affected. This includes super-markets, mini-marts, and liquor stores.

In crafting the ordinance Santa Monica estimates that in any given year these stores distribute, free of charge, twenty-six million (26,000,000) non-recycled paper or plastic "single use" bags. The vast majority of the "throw-away" bags are plastic.

"Santa Monica taxpayers are paying to clean up those bags that are being given away free by these stores." -- Dean Kubani (Director: Santa Monica Office of Sustainability and the Environment)

Of the eighteen hundred seventy (1,870) stores only ninety-five (95) of them will be required to charge the customer 10¢ per recycled paper bag. The other seventeen hundred seventy-five (1,775) will be exempted. These exempted stores will be able to give the recycled-paper bags away free, but are banned from using plastic. This 10¢ charge is the minimum by the way; stores could, if they wanted to, charge more.

The reason these stores have been targeted is because the City of Santa Monica has determined that the majority of the bags ending up in the street come from these ninety-five (95) stores.

The fee is "intended to discourage the customer from using plastic bags" and no part of that fee will go to the city or state; the store itself will retain any profits from the sale of these bags. This was done to skirt a recently passed Proposition 26. Proposition 26, passed November 2010, requires voter approval for any state level fees or charges by a clear 2/3 majority of the state Congress.

The city itself will have to absorb the $60,000 initial cost to implement the program. This for staff and supplies. After that cost to the city will rise to $115,000 for 2011~2012 and then "stabilize" to $75,000 per year thereafter.

At ten cents a bag, and only recycled paper bags at that, I thought it a good idea to find out just what these cost. Here's the breakdown.

A Single Use Plastic Grocery Bag, cost per bag is 2/10ths of a cent or five bags for one cent. This does not include labor, capital and overhead which adds another 10% making the bag 2.2/10ths of a cent. If you want something printed on the bag then the cost is about four bags a cent or 3.4/10ths a cent.

Let me put it this way, they are cheap.

A Single Use Recycled Paper Bag, cost per bag is about nine (9¢) cents per bag. Substantially more than plastic. This goes a long way toward explaining why stores jumped on the "plastic bag" bandwagon so many years ago; it cost less.

However, plastic bags are tough to recycle for two reasons. First, they tend to gum up the recycling machinery and many cities won't take them for that reason. Second, it's actually cheaper to make a plastic bag from "virgin" plastic than to make one from recycled plastic.

Paper, on the other hand, is highly recyclable with about 78% percent of paper waste making it to recycling facilities. Recycled paper is cheaper to produce too with costs substantially less than from virgin wood.

Santa Monica merchants will be required to report to the Santa Monica Office of Sustainability and the Environment the number of recycled paper bags sold and the amount of money taken in on those sales.

Certainly, there will be some group of merchants and individuals who object to this proposed ordinance. After all:

• Only certain stores are required to charge for bags
• The required minimum 10¢ charge could be an issue
• Merchants in the small group will be required to track how many bags they've sold
• Enforcement will be an issue; there really isn't any
• The sixty thousand dollar allocation for enforcement could be an issue
• Who will be tasked with enforcement has yet to be determined

Other Issues
If this works as planned Santa Monica could become a "model city" for this sort of pollution enforcement. What happens here could spread to the rest of California and, in turn, the rest of the country.

Is this a good idea? I have no clue.

One way or the other there are going to be costs and there's no doubt in my mind that the cost charged for the bag will not offset the cost to the merchant to buy it. Then there's the $75,000 yearly cost to the city for monitoring the program. Nothing ever stays within a projected budget.

It wasn't even sixty years ago that you took your own bag shopping. The shopping bag was a gimmick to lure customers to the store; a gimmick that worked too, until everyone else started doing it too.

Before that you brought your own bag, whatever style of bag that was. Maybe you even brought your own box.

Will the rest of California follow this ban?

Will the United States follow California?

Can we citizens really start bringing our own bags or boxes again?