By Jonathan Friedman

September 2, 2010 -- The thin plastic single-use bag could soon become a thing of the past in Santa Monica as the City Council prepares to approve a proposed local ban in September.

The council vote is needed after a similar statewide ban failed in the Califirnia senate Tuesday night. Santa Monica, as well as Los Angeles County are among the nearly two dozen governments in the state pursuing bans in their jurisdictions.

“The polluters won a battle in the state Senate, but we will win the war against the proliferation of single-use plastics in California,” said Mark Gold, president of Heal the Bay, which has led the legislative fight to enact a bag ban for more than five years.

“We look forward to working with enlightened and progressive leaders on the local level to end the environmental and fiscal waste caused by plastic bags,” Gold said.

Most of more than 23 million plastic bags distributed by grocery stores and food markets in Santa Monica each year become litter and eventually pollute the beaches and threaten marine life, said Dean Kubani, Santa Monica’s environmental programs division manager.

“They’re often just discarded on the street or even if they’re thrown in a trash can, they’re so light weight that they end up blowing out and are easily transported,” Kubani said.

Single-use plastic bags are already banned in China, Bangladesh and India, as well as in several California cities, including Malibu and San Francisco.

The proposed ban applies to bags that are less than 2.25 millimeters thick, which means that the thicker plastic bags used by most retailers outside the food industry, such as clothing stores, would not be covered. Neither would the small bags used at grocery stores for produce.

Food vendors can file for an exemption if they fear that paper bags used for hot take-out items could leak and pose a health risk. The items not included in the ban are not considered major polluters, Kubani said.

In addition to eliminating the plastic bags, the ordinance would discourage the use of paper bags by requiring retailers to charge a fee, City officials said. The fee, which will likely be about 25 cents, would cover the cost to the store for the paper bag and the City’s cost to enforce the law.

The ordinance would be enforced on a complaint basis, with officials investigating reported violations, City officials said. An initial warning would be followed by fines of $100, $250 and $500.

As with the City’s ban on polystyrene containers, there should be no major violations, Kubani predicted.

“We’ve worked closely with the food service providers on that [polystyrene ban], helping them find alternatives, and it’s been very educational,” he said. “I don’t know of any fines that have actually been levied because the compliance with that ordinance has been very good.”

City officials will meet with the Bayside District and other business districts, as well as with the Chamber of Commerce, to talk about the ban, Kubani said.

Some businesses will not have to worry about compliance. Whole Foods and Trader Joe's stopped using plastic bags two years ago.

“Customers were happy,” said Yesenia Pacheco, the accountant for the Downtown Whole Foods on Wilshire Boulevard. “Maybe a couple that don’t really care about the environment were upset. But for the most part, everybody was OK with it.”

After growing accustomed to using only paper and reusable bags, the transition was mostly trouble-free, Pacheco said.

California municipalities spend nearly $25 million a year to collect and dispose of plastic bag waste, and less than 5 percent of plastic grocery bags are recycled each year statewide, according to Heal the Bay.

The City Council was scheduled to vote on a ban last year, but waited for an environmental impact report to be completed after a coalition of plastic bag manufactures and related businesses threatened to file a lawsuit. The group successfully blocked a plastic bag ban in Manhattan Beach, and the State Supreme Court recently agreed to hear that case.

The draft EIR for Santa Monica’s proposal was completed in June. The document can be viewed on the Office of Sustainability and Environment’s section of the City’s web site at www.smgov.net.

The polluters won a battle in the state Senate, but we will win the war against the proliferation of single-use plastics in California”

"We look forward to working with enlightened and progressive leaders on the local level to end the environmental and fiscal waste caused by plastic bags"
    Mark Gold, president
   Heal the Bay

"Most of more than 23 million plastic bags distributed by grocery stores and food markets in Santa Monica each year become litter and eventually pollute the beaches and threaten marine life"
   Dean Kubani, manager    environmental programs