Marin County Bag Ban Threatened by Lawsuit from Plastic Industry

This past week has brought both good and bad news to reusable bag fans. Let's start with the good: Italy banned plastic grocery bags. The entire country went bag-free as of January 1st.  According to Planet Ark, the average Italian uses about 330 plastic bags annually. While Italy's bag use comprised about one-fifth of the total of Europe's annual bag use, the country still used stunningly less bags than many Americans. For instance, in California, the average person uses between 500 to 600 bags a year.

Which is why many Californian municipalities are banning the environmental menace as well. Parts of Los Angeles County, Long Beach, and San Jose have all recently enacted bag bans. But the most recent ban attempt in Marin County, C.A., was stalled this week due to plastic industry pressure and threats of a lawsuit against the county.

Like the recent Los Angeles County ban, the Marin County ban would affect unincorporated-area grocery stores and impose a charge on paper bags. The fee on paper bags is five cents, lower than most other C.A. bans.  Also as with the L.A. County ban, the idea was for local cities to impose bans, modeling them after the county ban.

The Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, a front-group for the plastic industry, put the wheels of progress to a halt by threatening to sue Marin County if they enacted the ban. The coalition's lawyer claims that banning plastic bags would actually harm the environment and is stalling the county ban by insisting that the county complete a full environmental impact report or face a lawsuit. Nothing like using environmental law against the environmentalists.

While it may seem laughable, Save the Plastic Bag and the group's lawyer, Stephen Joseph, have sued the City of Manhattan Beach, C.A. on the exact same grounds when it tried to enact a bag ban. The group claims that banning plastic bags simply leads shoppers to use paper bags. Many cities have added a fee for paper bags within their bans to discourage this switch. The City of San Jose, C.A. ban states that their paper bag fee will start at a dime but later increase to a quarter to encourage shoppers to bring reusable bags. Santa Monica has also proposed a 25-cent fee for paper. Reusable bags are the best answer for the environment, the grocers, and the shopper, but not for industry lobbyists who certainly have the money to hold up any number of bag bans.

Other California cities are currently working on bans. Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, and Culver City, C.A. are all considering bans and shouldn't be intimidated by Big Plastic.

Let's revisit the Italian bag ban for a moment. According to Care 2,  200 Italian municipalities out of the country's 8,000 introduced their own bans, thus encouraging the country-wide ban. Wouldn't it be something if enough individual U.S. municipalities banned bags that Washington decided on a nation-wide ban? Also, let's not forget that other countries have done it too — China, Australia, South Africa, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands. Let's not forget either that the Italian ban was held up for a year due to Big Plastic, but in the end, environmental advocates won.

If the plastic industry's last-minute objection to Marin County's proposed bag ban can get traction, ours can, too. Let the Marin County Board of Supervisors know that they have your support to move forward with their ban. Add your name to Environment California's support letter to the Supervisors.

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Photo credit: Urban Woodswalker via Flickr