Green Retailing Memo: One Year Since Eliminating Plastic Bags Whole Foods Market Says Reusable Use Has Tripled; 150 Million Less Bags in Landfills

Whole Foods Market teamed up with singer Sheryl Crow (pictured above, right) to design its value-priced "A Better Bag" reusable canvas shopping bag (pictured above, left). The reusable bags, which feature a tree drawn by Crow, come in two sizes and sell for 79-cents and 99-cents (large bag) respectively.

Nearly one year ago, on Earth Day, April 22, 2008, Whole Foods Market, Inc. eliminated offering free single-use plastic carrier bags as an option in all of its stores in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom. Instead, Whole Foods' decided to offer shoppers only free 100% recyclable paper grocery bags (made from at least 50% post-consumer recycled paper), along with making a major push to encourage customers to bring there own reusable shopping bags with them to the stores, as well as offering a variety of reusable bag varieties for sale at a variety of price points in its natural and organic foods markets.

[Read our April 21, 2008 story about Whole Foods Market's banning the plastic bags in its stores here: Green Retailing Memo: Whole Foods Market, Inc. Self-Bans the (Plastic) Bag Tomorrow; Has Related Regional Earth Day Promotions Planned For All Stores.]

A.C. Gallo, Whole Foods Market, Inc.'s co-president and chief operating officer says the Austin, Texas-based natural grocery chain decided to eliminate the single-use plastic carrier bags on Earth Day last year "in an effort to help protect the environment and conserve resources, a move that aimed to protect nature and wildlife and reduce litter by encouraging customers to bring reusable bags when they shop for groceries."

Last year hundreds of Whole Foods Market's store-level team members joined the non-profit Ocean Conservancy group's annual coastal cleanup day in which thousands of volunteers pick up litter and catalog what they found along beaches and coastal waterways throughout the world.

"During Ocean Conservancy's 2008 International Coastal Cleanup, 1.4 million plastic bags were found littering our oceans, lakes and rivers," says Dianne Sherman, Director of the International Coastal Cleanup. "Trash travels. Even if we live thousands of miles inland, our actions have a profound effect on the ocean. A bag can blow from a picnic table, wash down a storm drain into a river and wind up harming or killing a sea turtles, birds or other marine life. Trash is one of the most pervasive - but solvable -- pollution problems facing our oceans and waterways. Whole Foods Market and their customers are demonstrating how simple lifestyle changes can make a sea change."

When it eliminated the plastic grocery bags last year from the checkouts in all its stores Whole Foods Market became the first major U.S. grocery chain to do so.

Gallo says that in the one year since Whole Foods' eliminated the single-use plastic carrier bags from all of its natural foods supermarkets the chain has seen the amount of reusable bag use among its customers triple. Additionally, Gallo says that the natural and organic grocer has kept an estimated 150 million plastic bags out of landfills since last Earth Day.

That's a considerable amount of plastic bags for one food retailing chain with just under 300 stores to keep from going into municipal landfills, which is where most of the single-use bags go because there isn't a comprehensive recycling system for the plastic bags in the U.S. like there is for paper grocery bags.

"At first we wondered if shoppers would just switch to paper but to our great surprise, people have been truly excited about using reusable bags," Gallo says. "I think Whole Foods Market has also helped that along by offering various versions of stylish, affordable 99 cent bags that have become quite popular - our shoppers have been inspired to make a positive environmental change and have really incorporated the reusable bag mindset into their daily lives. Eliminating plastic bags was definitely the right move at the right time."

Whole Foods' sells a variety of reusable bags in its 279 stores in the U.S., Canada (six stores) and the United Kingdom (five stores). Its value-oriented "A Better Bag," which sell for 79 and 99-cents respectively, depending on size, is constructed primarily (80% of its content) from recycled plastic bottles. The bags currently feature a charcoal sketch of a tree drawn and signed by singer Sheryl Crow.

The natural grocery chain also sells a variety of lower -to- mid-ranged priced reusable tote bags on up to its premium $29.99 cotton and burlap FEED 100 bag. Each FEED bag purchased by shoppers helps provide 100 nutritious lunches to hungry Rwandan school children through the United Nations World Food Program's School Feeding Program, as part of charitable program Whole Foods Market contributes to.

Whole Foods Market also offers customers a refund of either five or 10 cents per-reusable bag used at the stores' checkouts. The amount varies depending on the store and where it is located.

Paper bag use has increased at Whole Foods' stores since the retailer self-banned the plastic bags nearly a year ago. We know this because we've talked to store-level employees in at least 40 Whole Foods Market stores over the last year who have told us this is the case. However, that's to be expected, and we have no problem with it for a couple reasons.

First, the paper grocery bags are 100% recyclable. Nearly every city and town in the U.S has convenient, curbside recycling programs. And many of the smaller town that don't have the curbside programs allow resident to toss their paper waste into their green waste garbage cans. Since paper, including paper grocery sacks, is compostable, the disposal companies turn it and the green waste into compost which the towns use in parks and also sell to companies and often give away for free to town residents to use in their gardens

Additionally, the paper bags used at Whole Foods Market stores are at made from at least 50% post-consumer recycled materials, and the grocer is working on 100%. This means the bags a shopper gets today came from at least half of a bag that was recycled and turned into the new bag.

Unfortunately single-use plastic carrier bags are seldom recycled in the U.S., largely because there isn't a comprehensive recycling system established to do so . Few if any curbside recycling programs allow single-use plastic carrier bags, for example.

In states like California and New York, supermarkets are required by state laws to place bins in the stores so that shoppers can return the plastic bags. The retailers also are required to arrange to have the bags picked up by a company that will have them recycled.

But the simple fact is that American consumers generally will only recycle if its convenient to do so, which is why residential the curbside system works best. Before that cities used drop off centers. Recycling rates were minimal. Curbside increased the rates dramatically.

In addition, only about three or four states have such laws.

In 2007, Whole Foods Market introduced all-natural fiber packaging at its in-store salad and food bars that comes from plants that grow wild or are cultivated and harvested annually.

Whole Foods' is currently searching for alternatives to its use of plastic bags and plastic containers in its stores' produce, seafood, bakery and bulk foods departments, according to Gallo. Since customers generally use a single plastic bag for each individual item purchased in these departments, that adds up to using lots of these single-use small bags storewide for Whole Foods.

Any replacement bag for these uses though requires that the material used in the bag is food grade, since it will be coming into contact with fresh and ready-to-eat foods.

Before the invention of the plastic bag for use in produce and plastic bags and containers for in-store bakery, supermarkets used paper bags and paper boxes (remember those pretty pink bakery boxes?) in these departments.

Some supermarkets still use paper along with plastic in their in-store full service bakeries. However few do largely because the cost of plastic is cheaper.

Switching to paper is something we think Whole Foods should take a look at and consider for both bakery and bulk foods. It's a bit more difficult for produce, although their are supermarkets that still offer a choice of plastic and paper bags for shoppers in the produce departments. Paper can be used to wrap fresh fish but usually stores put it in a bag first in order to preserve its freshness. That could be more difficult to find a solution for.

One of the reasons retailers like using plastic in produce, bakery and bulk departments is because the store checkout clerks can see the item through the bag, which speeds up checkout. However, we think in the case of bakery and bulk, going to paper for Whole Foods wouldn't slowdown checkout all that much, particularly once the clerks got used to peeking inside the bag when the need to, mostly in the case of produce since the bulk bags are supposed to be identified by code numbers anyway.

It would be hard of course to go to paper completely in any in-store bakery we realize because in some cases clear packaging, prepacked cakes and the like, is needed to display the product in self-service. But items in the full-service cases could be packaged using paper bags without much difficulty. Safeway Stores, Inc. for example does this in its stores, using a mix of paper (for service bakery) and plastic.

Of course, a truly biodegradable-compostable plastic bag for seafood, fresh meat, produce, bakery and bulk that doesn't cost retailers an arm and a leg would be a great solution. But none are available at a decent cost yet on the market that we've been able to find.

There is a slow behavior change going on among consumers in terms of bringing their own bags to the grocery store. And since Whole Foods Market happens to cater to the "greenest" of "green" consumers it's likely the behavior change is and will always be more dramatic in its stores, compared to say conventional supermarkets.

But with steady education, along with economic incentives designed to decrease plastic and even paper bag use by shoppers, its our analysis that over the next few years we will see more and more shoppers, regardless of where they shop, bringing there own bags to the grocery store.

In fact, it is some of the no frills, deep-discount grocery chains like Germany-based Aldi (Europe and the U.S.) and Lidl (Europe), and Supervalu's Sav-A-Lot (U.S.) that are leading the way in encouraging shoppers to bring their own bags to the store because they charge customers a small fee (usually five to 15-cents per-bag) for each single-use plastic bag they request at checkout, providing a small but still real economic incentive to shoppers to bring their own bags to the store. Many shoppers bring single-use plastic bags or paper bags from previous trips or from other stores with them to these stores, not just specifically designed reusable tote bags. Doing this takes the "single-use" out of the paper and plastic bags.

And of course more and more cities, counties and even states and nations (Ireland, China) have and are passing plastic bag ban laws or laws requiring shoppers to pay for the single-use plastic bags in stores if they request them. As more of these laws are passed, which they will be, that obviously will decrease the amount of single-use plastic bags used overall, both in the U.S. and globally. [Related story: Green Memo: Ireland Has Reduced the Use of Single-Use Plastic Carrier Bags By 94 Percent With Bag-Fee Law; Has Exceeded EU Recycling Targets.]

For example, China banned the bags nationwide last year. That resulted in a huge global decrease in usage in one legislative fiat. Of course it would be better if consumers adopted the use of reusable bags without all the added new legislation.

What's needed are additional and new creative ways to change shopper behavior more towards the bring-your-own-bag concept, along with some solid economic incentives designed to move the behavior change along more rapidly. We see both coming.

Reader Notes

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Green Retailing Memo: July Big Month For Plastic Bag Ban and Fee Legislation in the U.S.; Seattle, Los Angeles Other Cities Pass New Laws

The city of Seattle, Washington this week passed legislation that will impose a 20-cent per-bag fee on consumers who request single-use plastic carrier bags at the city's supermarkets, drug stores and convenience stores.

The new law was passed by an overwhelming 6-1 vote by the Seattle City Council.

The new per-bag fee on single-use plastic carrier bags will go into effect in January, 2009.

In addition to passing the 20-cent plastic bag charge, the city council voted 7-0 to ban certain types of styrofoam food containers.

That new legislation will be implemented in two-parts: A ban on styrofoam food containers currently used at take-out restaurants will take effect in January, 2009, at the same time the bag fee at Seattle's supermarkets, drug and convenience stores is implemented.

Phase-two of the foam container ban eliminates the use by supermarkets and other food retailers of foam trays used for fresh, raw meats and seafood displayed for sale. It will go into effect in July, 2010. The Seattle City Council said it believed that would give food retailers enough time to find an alternative to the foam trays for meat and seafood merchandising.

The Seattle legislation imposing the 20-cent per-bag consumer fee on single-use plastic carrier bags at supermarkets, drug and convenience stores, combined with the ban on foam containers, is the most comprehensive legislation enacted at the same time we've observed to date in a U.S. city or county.

Retailers will still be permitted to use paper grocery sacks to packaged shoppers' purchases.

Bag ban and fee legislation picking up steam throughout U.S.

The Seattle plastic bag fee legislation also comes at a time when single-use plastic carrier bag ban and fee legislation is picking up steam in cities and counties throughout the U.S.

On July 1, the city of Manhattan Beach in Southern California enacted a total ban on the use of non-reusable plastic grocery bags for stores of all retail formats in the city.

Under the Manhattan Beach plastic grocery bag ban legislation, grocery stores, food vendors, pharmacies and city facilities have six months to phase out the use of single-use plastic carrier bags in their stores in the city.; all other retail establishments have a year to do the same.

The Manhattan Beach single-use plastic carrier bag law is the first we've found in the U.S. that bans retailers of all formats--ranging from supermarkets, drug and convenience stores, to discounters and department stores-from using the free, single-use carrier bags.

On July 22, the Los Angeles City Council passed legislation banning the use of single-use plastic carrier bags in grocery and other retail stores in the city by 2010--but only if the California State Assembly fails to pass pending legislation that would would impose a 25-cent per single-use plastic carrier bag fee on shoppers who request the bags in a California supermarket.

The Los Angeles plastic bag ban was proposed by Councilman Ed Reyes, who called plastic bags "the graffiti of the L.A. River," (his way of describing plastic bag litter) which passes through his district.

The Los Angeles plastic bag ban law is designed to encourage California legislators to vote for a proposed California State Assembly Bill, AB 2058, (currently being debated in the Appropriations Committee) that if passed would place 25-cent per-bag fee on all single-use plastic bags requested by consumers in all California supermarkets. The consumers would pay the 25-cent per-bag fee at the point-of-sale.

Commenting on the legislation, Los Angeles City Councilman Alarcon says the city council would eventually pass a law regulating plastic bags. But for now, the council's vote is designed to persuade state lawmakers to impose a fee on the bags

"If they (state of California) don't do [a fee], then we do a ban," said Alarcon, who represents the northeast San Fernando Valley. "So yes, at some point there would be an ordinance."

The city of Los Angeles estimates that Los Angeles consumers use 2.3 billion plastic bags each year. According to the state of California, only about 5% of plastic bags are recycled statewide.

In May, another Southern California city, the coastal community of Malibu, passed a law banning the use of single-use plastic carrier bags in the city known among other things as the home of numerous Hollywood celebrities.

The law applies to all retailers (just like the Manhattan Beach legislation), including grocery stores, restaurants, pharmacies and city facilities. These Malibu retailers have about six months (from May) to comply with the plastic bag ban law, or face a fine of up to $1,000. Smaller vendors will have up to a year, as is the case with the Manhattan Beach law.

In Northern California, The San Francisco Bay Area city of Palo Alto, home to Stanford University, passed a law earlier this year that places a per-bag fee on each single-use plastic carrier bag requested by shoppers in the city's supermarkets and pharmacies.

Palo Alto is the third San Francisco Bay Area city to enact either outright bag ban legislation or a per-bag fee law.

In June of last year, San Francisco became the first city in the U.S. to enact a ban on the use of the single-use plastic grocery bags in supermarkets and drug stores. The San Francisco law applies to stores that do $2 million or more in annual sales. It allows the city's convenience stores, numerous corner groceries and all other format retailers to continue using the single-use plastic carrier bags.

Nearby Oakland last year also passed a bag ban similar to San Francisco's law. However, a plastics industry trade group chose to challenge Oakland's law in court. Earlier this year a court ruled in the trade group's favor, preventing Oakland from enacting the legislation. The Oakland City Council is considering whether and how to rewrite a single-use plastic carrier bag law that will hold up in court.

The plastics industry, through a couple trade organizations, has said it plans to challenge the Manhattan Beach and Malibu bag bans as it did Oakland's No trade groups have yet challenged the San Francisco plastic bag ban law, which has been in effect for over a year now.

A few other U.S. cities have passed either bag ban of fee legislation since last year. Many more are currently debating and considering such legislation.

With the cities described above enacting bag bans or fees all in the last few months, we're seeing increased emphasis being put on the issue throughout the U.S. This is especially the case in California because the proposed 25-cent per single-use plastic carrier bag legislation currently being debated in the State Assembly's Appropriations Committee is creating more attention to the issue in cities and counties throughout the state.

Global bag ban and fee legislation

The fact that counties like Australia, China, Ireland, and many nations in Asia and Africa have either banned the bags outright or imposed a fee on them also is serving to galvanize attention to the issue in the U.S.

Additionally, the issue is super hot in Europe, where the European Union is discussing a nationwide ban or fee scheme, and where individual nation's like the United Kingdom have said unless that country's retailers drastically reduce the number of single-use plastic carrier bags they use by the end of this year, it will pass legislation early next year either banning the bags or imposing a fee on them.

Numerous European cities in countries like France and Germany also have either inacted bag bans or fee laws.

Individual retailers in the UK like Marks & Spencer and a couple others have already announced plans to charge customers for the single-use plastic carrier bags in their stores. The UK's Co-operative Group grocery chain says it's in the process of eliminating the single-use plastic carrier bags and is testing 100% compostable carrier bags in some of its stores as a possible alternative.

Whole Foods Market, Inc. stopped offering single-use plastic carrier bags completely in April in all of its stores in the U.S., Canada and the UK.

We expect to see single-use plastic carrier bag ban and fee legislation continue to pick up in the U.S., as it is in Europe and elsewhere, for the rest of this year. It's becoming the primary environmental focus in terms of retail impact among scores of city councils and county governmental bodies throughout the U.S. It's at these local levels in the U.S. where we expect to see most of the new bag ban and fee legislation being implmented, rather than on a statewide basis.

Green Retailing Memo: Upscale British Supermarket Chain Waitrose Comes Up With A Bright 'Green' Idea For its Chesham, UK Store

A Waitrose supermarket in the United Kingdom town of Chesham has introduced what the upscale food retailer is calling a "green till."

The Chesham branch of the Waitrose supermarket chain has created a "green" checkout lane which can only be used by customers who either bring their own reusable shopping bags or previously received single-use plastic or paper carrier bags to be reused in the store.

No single-use carrier bags will be given out at the "green" checkout.

The move by the Chesham Waitrose is in part a response to a campaign in the town to get the city's lawmakers to ban the use of single-use plastic carrier bags in that community.

A local group called CarryAbag is campaigning for a law that would ban retail stores in Chesham from giving out single-use plastic carrier bags to shoppers. It's the town's goal to be plastic bag-free, either with voluntary compliance by retailers and residents, or eventually through a law banning the single-use plastic carrier bags.

CarryAbag is even linked on the town's official webpage, where it sells an attractive "CarryAbag" canvas reusable shopping bag.

Julia Brammer, a spokesperson for the CarryAbag group, said the organization welcomes the Waitrose supermarket's "green" checkout lane idea.

"It's absolutely brilliant they're taking the issue of bag use seriously and are doing something to encourage shoppers to use their own bags," Ms. Brammer told Natural~Specialty Foods Memo.

Chesham, a town of about 20,000 residents, is a very "green"-conscious community. In fact, in 2006 the town adopted its own comprehensive environmental policy, which you can read here.

Chesham also is a "Fairtrade" town, meaning it's the city's official policy to support Fairtrade goods and services. The town was the first in Buckinghamshire to achieve Fairtrade status when it did so in 2005. Fairtrade status is granted to towns, organizations and businesses in the UK by the UK Fairtrade Foundation.

We think the Waitrose supermarket in Chesham's idea to create a "green" reusable shopping bag lane in its store is a good one.

Like "express" lanes for shoppers who only have ten items or less, it offers a priority to shoppers--in this case for exhibiting positive environmental behavior. It's also a reward in the form of faster checkout service for doing so.

The "green" checkout lane concept, which we haven't seen any other supermarket adopt as of yet, reminds us of freeway carpool lanes in concept. Drivers are rewarded for carpooling (positive environmental behavior) and thus allowed a special lane on the freeway, which always has far less traffic in it than the other lanes. In some countries drivers of hybrid vehicles also can use the carpool lanes.

Both of these concepts--the carpool lane for drivers and the Waitrose Chesham reusable shopping bags-only lane for customers--create an incentive for consumers to behave in an environmentally positive manner.

Human beings like and respond well to positive reinforcement--and as such we expect the Waitrose store's "green" checkout lane to not only be popular, but to change shopper behavior over time. Once many of the supermarket's customers notice the "green till," and how much faster its users are getting waited on, they will start to bring their own reusable carrier bags to the store.

We think this is a winning idea Waitrose should expand to its other UK supermarkets. It's also a great idea for grocery retailers throughout the world--especially in the U.S.

It would be simple for a typical supermarket that has say 12 checkout lanes, to convert one or two of those 12 lanes into "green lanes," in which only shoppers with either reusable shopping totes or their own "reused" single-use plastic or paper carrier bags could use.

We believe the "green" lanes would be a big hit. Further, the U.S. supermarket chain that does it first, for example, is going to have a competitive advantage--at least until others follow suit--and generate lots of publicity over doing so.

The idea is equally good for other UK supermarket chains like Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's, which all have promised to reduce the amount of single-use plastic carrier bags they use in their stores by 25% by the end of this year.

In fact, Sainsbury's CEO Justin King recently announced the retailer is looking for ways to create incentives (carrots not sticks in his words) to get shoppers to request fewer single-use plastic carrier bags rather than to see the UK impose an outright ban or a per-bag charge on the carriers.

The Waitrose "green" checkout lane--which shoppers can only use if they bring their own bags--seems to us to be a very good and innovative carrot.

Green Retailing Memo: Judge Slaps Injunction on Oakland, California Single-Use Plastic Carrier Bag Ban; Ruling Could Have Implications Elsewhere

Alameda County (where the city of Oakland is located) Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch has issued a ruling placing an injunction on the single-use plastic carrier bag ban the Oakland City Council passed into law last year.

Oakland's plastic grocery bag law would ban food and grocery retailers with stores that do over $1 million a year in sales from offering the single-use plastic carrier bags in their stores. The grocers would still be able to offer paper grocery sacks to shoppers for no charge however.

A single-use plastic carrier bag trade association called The Coalition to Support Plastic Bag Recycling sued the city of Oakland last summer after the bag ban was passed by the lawmakers.

The trade group argued in the lawsuit that single-use paper grocery bags take more energy to produce and use more landfill space when disposed of than single-use plastic carrier bags. They further argued the city of Oakland should have conducted an environmental impact review (EIR) comparing the energy inputs required to produce the paper grocery sacks and the plastic bags, as well as studying the landfill disposal issue as part of that EIR before passing the single-use plastic carrier bag ban law.

California has a statewide law which requires supermarkets to put single-use plastic carrier bag recycling bins in their stores and have the bags picked up regularly in-store by a certified recycling company, as well as requiring the retailers to sell reusable shopping bags in those stores.

Although the single-use plastic carrier bag ban law was past last year, Oakland has yet to implement it because of the lawsuit. Judge Roesch's ruling states: "The court...finds that substantial evidence in the record supports at least a fair argument that single-use paper bags are more damaging than single-use plastic bags."

John Russo, Oakland's City Attorney, says he will ask the city council this week if it wants to contest the court's ruling or do an environmental review of the ban, which he says will cost the city about $100,000 to conduct.

In response to Judge Roesch's ruling in favor of the Coalition to Support Plastic Bag Recycling's lawsuit, Keith Cristman, the senior director of the American Chemistry Council's plastics division which opposes the Oakland law, said in a statement that "banning plastic bags would dramatically increase energy use, double greenhouse gas emissions and increase waste. Recycling plastic bags is the right approach and makes plastic bags the environmentally responsible choice."

Christman is basing his arguments above on the coalition's argument that banning the single-use plastic carrier bags in the Oakland food and grocery stores with $1 million or more in annual sales would lead to a significant increase in the use of paper grocery bags.

There is some evidence in nearby San Francisco for the paper bag increase in use argument. That city passed a similar plastic bag ban before Oakland passed its law last year. The San Francisco law, which was implemented last year, banned grocery chains and independents that operate stores over 10,000 square feet in size from offering single-use plastic carrier bags in those stores. The law allows the retailers' to continue to offer free paper grocery bags to shoppers.

Numerous grocers in San Francisco, such as Safeway Stores, Inc., regional chain Mollie Stone's and others, have reported paper bag use in their stores increasing dramatically since the plastic grocery bag ban law went into effect last year.

However, they also have reported a significant increase in shoppers bringing their own reusable shopping bags to the stores, along with an increase in the number of reusable bags their stores are selling since the plastic grocery bag ban went into effect.

Further, the City of San Francisco argues, and many agree, that because the city's system of curbside recycling for paper grocery bags is so simple and is available in every neighborhood in the city, over 70% of those single-use paper grocery bags are being recycled, unlike plastic grocery bags which they say end-up either in the city's landfill or littered on the streets.

Many food and grocery retailers in San Francisco also give shoppers a five cent credit for every paper grocery bag they return to the stores. Whole Foods Market stores in the city give customers a 10 cent per-bag credit for each returned paper grocery sack.

The Coalition to Support Plastic Bag Recycling didn't oppose San Francisco's ban in court for some reason. Rather, it chose to file a lawsuit against the city of Oakland's plastic bag ban law instead. The two city's laws are nearly identical expect San Francisco's bases the ban on the square footage of a grocery store (the 10,000 square feet size), while Oakland's law is based on annual store sales (the $1 million number.)

If the city of Oakland doesn't appeal the court's ruling and the injunction stays, that means the city's single-use plastic carrier bag law can't be implemented. As such, it will be interesting to see what decision the city council gives City Attorney John Russo this week.

If the coalition does win the case on appeal (if Oakland appeals), it could set a nationwide precedent regarding municipal plastic bag bans in the U.S.

We've located at least 30 cities in the U.S. that currently have proposals to ban the use of the single-use plastic carrier bags in supermarkets in their city's and towns. It's likely if the Oakland injunction holds, the coalition and other industry groups will use it as the basis of fighting similar proposed legislation in cities and counties throughout the U.S.

If the Oakland City Council decides to conduct the environmental review, the second option Russo has presented to the legislative body this week, it can use the results (if favorable to the bag ban law) in its appeal.

Natural~Specialty Foods Memo will continue to follow this story for our readers.

Grocery Retailing & Legislation Memo: AB 2058, the Plastic Bag-Reduction and Potential 15 Cent Bag-Fee Bill Passes California Assembly Committee Vote

One of the two single-use plastic carrier bag bills, AB 2058 debated and voted on by the California State Assembly Natural Resource Committee last Tuesday, passed in the committee with five -to- three member-vote and now will go to the Assembly Appropriations Committee for debate and possible markup as a bill in which the full Assembly would then vote on.

If eventually passed, AB 2058 would require all supermarket and drug retailers in California to charge consumers 15 cents per single-use plastic carrier bag requested unless the state's retailers meet a series of plastic bag reduction benchmarks or goals. These benchmarks require the retailers to meet a 35% reduction rate in plastic bag use by July 2011, followed by a 70% reduction by July 2013. If either goal isn't met within those time frames, the 15 cent per single-use plastic carrier bag customer fee would go into effect.

The legislation's author is Assemblyman Lloyd Levine from Southern California. Levine was the author of legislation which was enacted last July in California requiring supermarket and drug retailers operating larger stores to place single-use plastic carrier bag recycling bins in those stores. The legislation also made mandatory the offering for sale of reusable shopping bags in the stores.

A second bill, which the Natural Resource Committee debated but didn't put to a vote on Tuesday would levy a 25 cent per single-use plastic carrier bag fee on shoppers who request it at larger supermarkets and drug stores in California. There are no reduction goals in that bill. Rather the 25 cent bag-fee would be mandatory.

That bill remains in the committee where it either will be further debated soon or left sitting while AB 2058 goes through discussion, debate and an eventual vote in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. [Read more about that bill and related issues here.]

All proposed legislative bills in California, and most other states in the U.S. as well as at the federal government level, go to the Appropriations Committee after being passed by a respective committee like Natural Resources. It's the Appropriations Committee that's charged with appropriating any and all monies for legislation. Without the committee doing so, a bill will die in committee.

The next step for the plastic bag reduction/15 cent bag-fee bill, AB 2058, is for it to get what's called its first policy committee hearing in the Appropriations Committee. That's expected to happen soon.

A number of groups are supporting AB 2058 and are launching a public relations and grass roots campaign designed to get the Appropriation's Committee to support and vote the bill out to the full California State Assembly for a vote.

Leading the charge is a non-profit environmental group called Californian's Against Waste. Other signed-on supporters include the City and County of San Francisco, The Easy Bay Area Municipal Utilities District, the Marin County Board of Supervisors, the Northern California Recycling Association, and the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency.

Since the bill just passed the Natural Resource Committee, the California Grocers Association which represents California's chain and independent food and grocery retailers, hasn't taken a position on AB 2058 as of yet.

Additionally, because the bill just passed in the committee, it's still a bit early for the Golden State's supermarket retailers to start voicing either opposition or support for AB 2058.

However, as we reported in this piece last week, it's far from a sure thing that all or even the majority of the state's grocery chains and independents will oppose the law. One reason this is the case is that the grocers' would likely prefer AB 2058 to the 25 cent per plastic bag legislation which remains in the Natural Resource Committee and can be voted on any time the chairman of the committee puts the legislation up for a committee vote.

Another reason is that the grocers are well aware of the numerous proposed outright single-use plastic carrier bag-bans being debated by local governments throughout the state. Their are currently at least 30 California cities proposing such bans. San Francisco already has a plastic bag ban as law and Oakland has passed a similar law which is currently in court being fought by a plastic carrier bag trade association.

The Bay Area city of Palo Alto is set to enact a single-use plastic carrier bag fee law for that city later this week. Other California cities not considering bag-bans are considering bag-fee laws like Palo Alto's.

Therefore, the California Grocers Association (CGA) may decide to support AB 2058. The group's decision as to whether to support or oppose the bill will be based on what the majority of its chain and independent grocer-members decide.

CGA supported the previous legislation by Lloyd Levine, AB 2058's author, which requires the grocers in the state to place the plastic grocery bag recycling bins in their stores and sell the reusable shopping bags, the latter which most of the grocers already did before the law was passed and enacted last year.

However, the benchmarks--35% by 2011 and 70% by 2013--might be a little steep in the CGA's--and grocers'--opinion. Therefore, we believe the grocers might support AB 2058 if they can get two things changed: a reduction in the percentages the grocers' would be required to achieve, along with an extension of the 2011 and 2013 dates perhaps.

If some sort of compromise can be achieved in these two areas--for example, hypothetically speaking, say a 25% reduction by 2011 and a 60% reduction by 2013--we believe the grocer's association and the majority of the states supermarket chains and independents might support an amended AB 2058 bill. That's just our analysis though, and we will have to wait and see the result as the bill progresses through the Appropriations Committee.

There remains a long road for AB 2058 to become law. First, it has to pass the Appropriations Committee. From there it would then go to the full California State Assembly for an up or down vote by the members.

Should AB 2058 pass the full assembly, it then has to go to the California State Senate and begin the committee debate and vote process in that body. If the bill--which gets another name and number in the state senate (SB #) passes the senate committees' and then the full body, it still must be signed by the Governor in order to become law. The Governor has the power to kill the bill with a mere veto.

AB 2058 also can be amended during this entire journey through first the California State Assembly and then the state senate. Depending on the severity and economic backing of the opposition to the plastic bag-reduction and fee bill, AB 2058 could end up very much different than the original bill. On the other hand, if the opposition isn't stiff and well-funded, the bill could eventually emerge with only minor changes.

These compromises go all the way to the end, which includes any changes the Governor might want to make in order to sign a bill such as AB 2058.

Like the old saying goes: Laws are like sausages, it's better not seeing them being made. However, just like in sausage-making, the end result of any legislation that passes can either leave a fairly good taste in the majority of citizens' mouths, or just taste plain old horrible to everybody. Such is the art and process of lawmaking.

Green Retailing Memo: New Issues Emerging From Growing Consumer Use of Reusable Bags: Worker Injuries, Shoplifting Claims, 'Double-Bagging'

In Australia, the shop assistants' union which represents supermarket clerks, is claiming the growing use of reusable shopping bags, especially those of the canvas and cotton variety, is causing injuries to store clerks because the reusable bags can hold up to 40% more weight in groceries than single-use plastic carrier bags or paper grocery sacks. As a result, all the lifting and toting of the heavier-when-filled reusable bags are causing injuries to the store workers, according to the union.

As a result, the shop assistants' union is proposing laws that would protect the store workers from injuries caused by the heavier-when-filled reusable shopping bags.

The Aussie store clerks' union says it has statistics which show about 11.3% of the nation's supermarket clerks have been injured lifting the reusable shopping bags after packing them with a customer's grocery purchases.

The issue is beginning to gain steam in Australia because the country's government is expected to pass a law banning the use of single-use plastic carrier bags next year.

The union is just beginning to formulate a series of laws it says are designed to protect the store clerks from back and other injuries they say are increasingly being sustained because the canvas and cotton reusable shopping bags can hold many more items than a single-use plastic carrier bag, thus becoming much heavier to lift off checkout stand counters, put into shopping carts and carry out to customers' cars at supermarkets which offer that service.

In a piece earlier this week in which we mentioned that one unintended consequence (although it should have been expected) of the single-use plastic carrier bag ban for supermarkets over 10,000 square feet the city of San Francisco, California enacted last year, is that the use of paper grocery sacks in the stores has increased dramatically. The allow still allows the store to offer paper grocery sacks for free to shoppers.

Our point isn't to suggest the plastic bags should not have been banned. That's the choice of people and governments in democratic societies.

Rather, we're just pointing up that there often are unintended consequences when laws like bag bans are enacted.

It appears the supermarket clerk health and safety issue being brought up by the Australia shop assistant's union is one of those unintended consequences; in this case of the growing popularity of consumers doing the right and "green" thing by bringing their own reusable shopping bags to the grocery store rather than having the store use single-use plastic carrier bags or paper grocery sacks to pack their purchases.

The issue isn't isolated to Australia

The heavier reusable shopping bag issue and store worker injury or potential injury issue isn't unique to Australia. We've noticed it personally in stores in the USA. The eyes of supermarket clerks sometimes glaze over when they see a shopper present three or four canvas or cotton reusable shopping bags for their grocery order to be packed in.

We've asked a store clerk or two about that "look," and they told us the only problem with the reusable bags is that when full they are so much heavier than plastic bags--and even paper grocery sacks when filled. They've added that after an eight hour day--especially one in which lots of shoppers brought their own reusable grocery totes--of packing and lifting the heavier bags, their backs and shoulders get rather sore.

Others have noticed this phenomenon in supermarkets as well.

For example, below is a post a consumer wrote on the Yahoo Answers website regarding a discussion of just this issue involving reusable shopping bags at supermarkets:

When the cashier started scanning my merchandise I told her I brought my own bags. She just looked at me confused as hell and then said she couldn't use them. I was a little baffled because why couldn't she? I come to realize it was mostly due to pure laziness in wanting to pack with my bags. She told me I had 2 options 1. let her bag them in which she'd use the plastic bags or 2. I bag them and use my own bags.

A bit later on Yahoo Answers, a number of posters mentioned the reusable shopping bag being heavier than plastic grocery bags when full issue regarding this poster's reusable bag experience at her supermarket, as the likely culprit to that store clerk's attitude and behavior.

We doubt if such flat out refusal's are the norm--or even a 5% of the time issue. However, other consumers say they've experienced similar (though not refusals like the shopper quoted above) situations regarding supermarket clerks and reusable bags.

Below is an experience one consumer posted on a website called Daily Green:

2008 @ 2:18PMBigGUM said...Only once did a grocery clerk not want to use my bags. I suppose I could have thrown a fuss, but I opted to bag my own stuff instead. Usually my grocery store doesn't blink an eye and recently they've even started selling their own bags. Now just the other night at Target the cashier first attempted to scan my bags, then just went ahead and bagged my bags (!) in a plastic Target bag. When she finally understood what they were for she was flummoxed. Didn't I *like* the Target bag? Oh, I must be one of those save-the-environment people, right? No joke!

Other emerging issues regarding reusable shopping bags

This consumer's post points up another issue (other than the store clerk health and safety one) we've been recently told about regarding reuseable shopping bags in stores.

That issue is that in some cases store workers either tend to think shoppers are buying the bags at the store--and thus try to scan them like the consumer quoted above experienced--or even worse, we've been told by a number of consumers that store personal thought the shopper might be shoplifting with the reusable bags.

For example, below is a quote posted on Daily Green regarding the potential shoplifting issue:

-2008 @ 7:54PMAshleyThe Amazon said...I have literally been chased down by Wal Mart greeters when I enter a store with my own reusable bags, usually on a regular basis. One greeter claimed it was a theft issue and she needed to put a pink sticker on it to differentiate from their merchandise. These were bags emblazoned with "IKEA" and "Whole Foods" on them!! So obviously not theirs! I usually get dirty looks from the cashiers as well. They don't understand why I try to cram all of my items in the bags I brought. I have had these issues at 3, count them, 3 different stores. I wonder if its really a big company issue. Kinda makes me less likely to wanna go there.

Lastly, it seems many supermarket clerks are used to a certain routine which all shoppers are aware of. That routine has been company policy at supermarkets for years, primarily for perceptual rather than real reasons, but flies in the face of the reusable bag culture.

Here is an example: Clerks will put fresh meat, poultry or seafood for example into a separate plastic carrier bag so as to not let the package come into contact with other grocery products. They often do the same with fresh produce and other perishable or frozen items. In the latter case to keep the items frozen or cold. The concept is that in the separate bag there will be no "contamination."

Many shoppers who religiously bring their own bags to the store say this practice still happens to them when the supermarket clerk is bagging their grocery order.

The clerk, following store and company policy will "bag" fresh meat, poultry and seafood items for example in separate single-use plastic carrier bags, then put those bags along with all the other groceries into the customer's reusable shopping bags.

Of course, such practices defeat the source-reduction purpose the consumer intended by bringing his or her own bag to the supermarket. The shoppers then say they have to ask the clerk to please remove the items from the single-use plastic bags; which the clerks always do in the cases we've been told about or read about.

For example, here is what a poster on Daily Green had to say about the situation:

1-10-2008 @ 11:37AMBrigid Keely said...When I shop at grocery stores other than Whole Foods, I get confused looks when I say I brought my own bags. Sometimes the bagger bags everything in plastic bags (double bagged, t'boot) and then drops them in the bags I brought.One cashier teased me for having bags emblazoned with logos from stores other than his, but it was very friendly, and he made sure the bagger bagged our stuff correctly (ie, not in plastic).

Conclusion

Like all behavior and policy change, the growing use of reusable shopping bags isn't without its problems, as our examples point out. And since the goal is to grow this behavior and practice further, the unintended consequences are likely to grow and multiply.

However, we believe the in-store related behaviors can be fixed with effort by management, consumer patience, cooperation by the store clerks, and time.

The supermarket clerk injury situation currently being brought to attention by the Australian retail clerks union though could just be a bigger and less easily solved issue.

With the consumer use of reusable bags growing, more governments banning single-use plastic carrier bags completely, with others passing bag-fee laws and even retailers like Whole Foods Market self-banning the plastic bags in its stores beginning on April 22, we think the health and safety issue regarding the reusable shopping bags and potential and real store worker injuries is in its infancy. In other words, as the use of reusable shopping bags increases, so will the intensity of the issue, and not just in Australia.

We expect the issue to begin to emerge in the United States and Europe soon, as it is presently in Australia. As such, it promises to add another layer to the already multi-layer issue of paper, plastic--or reuseable bags.

Green Retailing Memo: Sainsbury's Rejects UK Bag-Fee Scheme; CEO Says Will Use A Customer 'Carrot' Instead of the 'Stick'

The combination of proposed legislation in the United Kingdom which would either levy a fee on each single-use plastic carrier bag a customer requests in a supermarket or ban the bags outright, along with a campaign called "Ban the (plastic) Bags," launched in February by London's Daily Mirror newspaper, has dramatically increased the plastic grocery bag use issue in the nation's supermarket and related retail industries, as well as among politicians and consumers.

British Chancellor Alistair Darling, who has the support of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, recently outlined a plan to pass legislation which would place a per-bag charge on the single-use plastic carrier bags unless the nation's retailers (especially supermarkets) take meaningful steps to reduce the bags' use.

In response, Sainsbury's CEO Justin King said yesterday: "Sainsbury's does not believe that charging for single-use bags is the only answer or that it is the most likely way to achieve lasting benefit for the environment."

"forcing customers to make a decision they don't fully understand is not the best way to achieve sustained behavior change," King added in a statement. "This (behavioral change) requires a series of actions to help customers to reduce, reuse and recycle."

Kings says beginning this weekend, Sainsbury's will test number of new initiatives and programs designed to determine what engages and helps people to reduce the number of single-use plastic carrier bags they use.

"Since last April, we (Sainsbury's) believe we've given away more free "bags for life" (inexpensive reusable carrier bags) than any other retailer," King says. "We now need to help customers remember to re-use them to make a difference on this issue and achieve a 50% reduction in disposable bag use."

Nearly all of the UK's leading supermarket chains--Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and the Co-op among them--have pledged to reduce the number of single-use plastic carrier bags they use in their stores by 25% by the end of this year, over the amount the respective chain's used last year.

King has now set the single-use plastic carrier bag reduction goal for Sainsbury's to 50% by this time next year.

The primary "carrot" or rewarding mechanism Sainbury's plans to use in its campaign to reduce the use of the thin, single-use plastic carrier bags in its stores is to begin giving customers extra reward points for using their own reusable shopping bags in the stores.

The grocery chain will give shoppers 1-point on their reward cards for every reusable shopping bag used at the checkouts, including single-use plastic carrier bags from any retail store. In other words, bring your-own bag of any kind and get a reward point.

A survey of Sainsbury's shoppers by the retailer found that 73% of those surveyed wanted an economic reward for using their own reusable shopping bags in the stores, according to King. The reward points program will begin in June.

King says Sainsbury's also will hold store parking lot campaigns in which employees will hand out free refrigerator magnets and car stickers that remind shoppers to bring their own grocery bags to the store.

This isn't an original idea. Numerous supermarket chains in the U.S. already have a similar reward card scheme for customers who bring their own bags to the store, as does Tesco, the UK's leading retailer.

King also said Sainsbury's will soon begin using single-use plastic carrier bags made from 50% recycled content. The grocery chain's single-use plastic carrier bags currently in use are made from 33% recycled content.

Sainsbury's plans to monitor the progress of its reward card points scheme. King says as the chain learns what motivates shoppers more to reduce their desire for the plastic bags it plans on initiating other reward-based programs if needed.

Meanwhile, as we reported some time ago, Marks & Spencer, which is a food, grocery, soft goods and general merchandise retailer in the UK, is thus far the first and only grocery retailer in the nation to announce it will voluntarily charge customers a fee for each single-use plastic carrier bag they request. That fee will be about 10 cents per bag.

However, since Ireland has had a per single-use plastic carrier bag fee law in place since 2002, every UK supermarket chain with stores in Ireland must charge for the bags by law.

Meanwhile, not one of the UK's leading grocery chains--not even the "super green" Co-op--has said they will stop using single-use plastic carrier bags completely, like Austin, Texas USA-based Whole Foods Market will do in all its stores in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom on April 22, Earth Day.

Whole Foods currently has just one store in the UK, a huge 75,000 square foot natural foods' superstore in London. However, the retailer is in the process of scouting for numerous locations in the nation to open more stores.

Ironically, come April 22, the only supermarket in the UK then that will not offer single-use plastic carrier bags at all will be a branch of a United States-based grocery chain--Whole Foods Market.

Natural~Specialty Foods Memo Analysis

With all due respect to Sainsbury's CEO Justin King, he's wrong that putting a per-bag fee on single-use plastic carrier bags doesn't change consumer or shopper behavior. There's plenty of empirical evidence--not to mention common intuitive sense--suggesting it does just that.

For example, as we reported here yesterday, Ireland passed a per-bag fee law in 2002. The government now reports single-use plastic carrier bag use has decreased by a whopping 94% since that law was passed.

A similar law in the island nation of Taiwan has achieved reduction results much the same as the Irish example.

Even absent this empirical evidence, don't we all believe in the main if a shopper is offered the choice of lets say three free paper grocery bags for their grocery order at the checkout, versus the choice of paying 10 or 15 cents each for three or four single-use plastic carrier bags to package the same grocery order, said customer will most likely on average say "paper please?"

We aren't criticizing King and Sainsbury's for its actions. Not at all. Nor are we saying the retailer's program can't achieve some results. Rather, we are merely stating facts in terms of behavior change on the issue, and offering empirical and inductive evidence for such change.

Further, whether we agree with the practice or not, the fact is laws that eliminate the use of the plastic carrier bags in retail stores most certainly change behavior fast.

For example, last year the city of San Francisco, California banned the use of the bags in grocery stores over 10,000 square feet in size.

There are about 30 supermarkets of this size in the city of about 800,000. The result: overnight there was a behavioral change since customers shopping those stores will no longer have the choice of plastic. Rather, it's either free paper grocery bags or bring their own reusable bags, which should be the ultimate goal of any scheme in our analysis.

Unfortunately perhaps for them, San Francisco's hundreds of grocery and convenience-oriented stores under 10,000 square feet in size haven't seen any increase in sales from consumers leaving the supermarkets over not being able to get plastic bags at the larger stores.

Our point is not to either advocate outright bans or bag-fees. There can be unintended consequences of even those schemes, such as a dramatic increase in the use of paper grocery bags which is occurring in San Francisco since the single-use bag ban was enacted last year.

However, although paper grocery bags actually require more energy inputs to produce than the plastic bags, and an increase in their use means cutting down more trees for the paper, they also are much easier to recycle. For example, nearly every city in the U.S. has household curbside recycling programs for paper grocery bags--but few if any take the single-use plastic grocery bags for recycling.

We hope Sainsbury's is able to achieve a 50% reduction in the number of single-use plastic carrier bags its stores use through its reward points program. However, we doubt it will, based on experience and data from with supermarket chains which have been doing similar schemes for sometime.

Further, the single-use plastic carrier bag issue is a serious one. The bags are littered all over the roadside by irresponsible individuals, are filling landfills and take decades to decompose once in them, and are clogging the Pacific Ocean with a plastic bag mass which currently is the size of the continental Unites States, and stretches from Hawaii to Japan.

Grocers are part of the problem, and therefore need to be part of the solution. Increasingly we think that solution is at least charging shoppers at the store for the plastic grocery bags. And, when done, it should be the law for all types and sizes of retail stores, not just supermarkets or grocery stores.

Of course, the main cause of the litter aspect of this issue are irresponsible individuals, who dispose of the single-use plastic carrier bags improperly. We think littering fines for this behavior should be tripled.

Lastly, but far from least, are the manufacturers of the plastic bags. The technology to make faster-decomposing (in landfills) and more-rapidly composting (compost pile) plastic carrier bags has been around for some years. However, the industry, with the exception of some entrepreneurial companies, has avoided it. Instead they've preferred to use the old technology because it's more profitable to do so rather than invest in the new technologies.

Further, rather than invest significantly in these new technologies and create a more rapidly-decomposing and faster-composting bag, the single-use plastic carrier bag industry's leading companies seem to have decided to spend that money fighting bag-bans and bag-fee legislation instead. The industry seems to have left grocers to fend for themselves on the issue.

We all know that in business, when your product no longer offers more benefits than it does negatives, it becomes obsolete. That's what has happened to the traditional single-use plastic carrier bag. As a result, the focus of the issue has become how to reduce the use--and the plastic bag industry isn't even a major player in the discussion.

Recent Related Pieces From Natural~Specialty Foods Memo:

>Green Memo: "Ireland Has Reduced the Use of Single-Use Plastic Carrier Bags By 94 Percent With Bag-Fee Law; Has Exceeded EU Recycling Targets." [Click here to read.]

>Green Retailing Memo: "California State Assembly Committee to Vote On Plastic Bag-Fee Measure Monday; Many Grocers support Bag-Fee Legislation." [Click here to read.]

>Food & Grocery Legislation Memo: "California Assembly Natural Resources Committee to Consider Second Plastic Bag Bill Along With Original Today." [Click here to read.]

>Green Memo Feature: "Scientific Evidence From the Lands and From the Oceans Suggests it's Time to Solve the Plastic Waste Issue." [Click here to read.]

Green Memo: Ireland Has Reduced the Use of Single-Use Plastic Carrier Bags By 94 Percent With Bag-Fee Law; Has Exceeded EU Recycling Targets

A spokesman for the government of Ireland tells Natural~Specialty Foods Memo (NSFM) its statistics show that since the Emerald Island put a per-bag fee on single-use plastic carrier bags in 2002, there has been a whopping 94% reduction in the use of the thin grocery and shopping bags in the country.

In 2002, Ireland passed a law which required supermarkets and other retail stores to charge shoppers a per-bag fee if they requested their purchases be packaged in a single-use plastic carrier bag rather than a paper or reusable carrier bag. Before the law was passed, single-use plastic carrier bags were given to shoppers for free in Ireland, as is still the case in many if not most country's of the world.

This data should be of particular interest to nation's like the UK, of which Ireland is a part, which are currently debating in Parliament as to if it should pass an outright ban on the single-use plastic carrier bags, and if so whether at all retail stores or just supermarkets, or if it should levy a per-bag fee scheme like the Irish have.

The data should also be of interest in California, where as we reported here on Friday April 11 and again on April 14, the California State Assembly Natural Resource Committee is considering two bills that would levy either a 25 cent or 15 cent fee per-single-use carrier bags in the state's larger supermarkets and drug stores.

And of course, the Irish example should be of interest everywhere in the world because nation's and local governments globally are in the process, and many already have done so, of voting on or proposing single-use plastic carrier bags laws of one sort or another.

The Irish example also should be noted by grocery retailers who either are completely against such bans or are debating whether to support state and local government bag fees over outright single-use plastic carrier bag bans.

National, state, provincial and municipal governments all over the world have proposed laws either banning the bags completely or adding a fee to them if requested by a shopper. Most experts believe it's just a matter of a couple years before most nation's have laws either charging for or banning the plastic bags.

Irish exceed EU packaged waste recycling targets by 14 percent

In addition to the dramatic reduction in the number of single-use plastic carrier bags, the Irish government and its citizens have also exceeded that European Union's (EU) target's for the recycling of packaged waste, such as food and grocery packaging and containers.

The government spokesperson told us the latest figures available show Ireland is recovering and recycling 64% of all its packaged waste, compared to a EU target of 50%.

This combination of the 94% reduction in the use of plastic carrier bags and the 64% packaged waste recovery and recycling rate makes Ireland arguably the biggest success story globally in both source-reduction and packaged waste recovery and recycling.

The government spokesperson told us Ireland doesn't plan on resting on it's laurels in either regard. It thinks it can decrease plastic carrier bag use to near 100% in the next couple years, as well as increasing the nation's packaged waste recycling rate even higher than the current 64%.

Other UK country's, along with states in the U.S. and elsewhere, should go to school on the Irish model as a way to increase both their recycling rates and use-reduction of the single-use carrier bags.

Grocery retailers should take note as well. Rather than fighting legislation to levy a per-bag fee on the single-use plastic grocery bags, they might want to take the advice of Ireland's grocers who agree in the main with the per-bag consumer surcharges, as well as with those grocers in Northern California's San Francisco Bay Area who we quoted in this piece last week.

We think the single-use plastic carrier bag industry might want to think about supporting some sort of per-bag fee scheme throughout the world as well, since more outright bans like those recently enacted in China, parts of Africa, in San Francisco and Oakland, California in the U.S. and other numerous other places throughout the globe, are coming fast and furiously.

Green Retailing Memo: California State Assembly Committee to Vote on Plastic Bag-Fee Measure Monday; Many Grocer's Support Bag-Fee Legislation

On Monday (April 14) the Natural Resource Committee of the California State Legislature is set to vote on a measure that would impose a mandatory fee of 25-cents per-bag on the use of free, single-use plastic carrier bags at all grocery stores and pharmacies in the state, regardless of the stores' size.

According to the legislation, which if passed will then go to the full California State Assembly for a binding vote, the money raised by the 25-cent per single-use plastic carrier bag fee would be divided-up using a per capita formula between the state's local governments to be used for litter prevention and reduction efforts and programs.

If the bill makes it out of committee to the full California State Assembly and then passes that body with a majority vote, it would be the first statewide mandatory per-bag fee law in the United States.

There has been very little media attention in the Golden State regarding the proposed statewide 25-cent single-use plastic carrier bag legislation. This is largely because the vote on Monday is only a committee vote. While in committee, legislation can still be amended and changed, although since the bill is coming to a vote on Monday that's generally a signal the committee majority party chair (Democrat) and the ranking member (Republican) have agreed most of the amendments to the bill if any have been made and it's time for a full committee vote.

Our California state government sources tell us the chances for the 25-cent per-bag fee legislation to pass in the Natural Resource Committee on Monday are pretty good.

One interesting aspect of the proposed legislation is that to date there has been very little if any opposition from either the state's supermarket and pharmacy retailing trade associations, such as the California Grocers' Association, or individual grocery retailing chains or independents in the state.

In part this is because as we mentioned earlier, the legislation is still in committee rather than being up for a binding vote in the full state assembly.

However, that's only a small part of the reason for the lack of any significant opposition to the proposed law.

The more interesting aspect of the story is that numerous supermarket chains and independent grocers in the state agree with the 25-cent per plastic bag fee legislation, or are at least not inclined to oppose it. Part of the reason these grocery retailers might agree with the proposed statewide law is they see either outright bans or per-bag fee laws coming on a city-by-city piecemeal basis anyway.

As mentioned above, San Francisco passed a single-use plastic carrier bag law last year, which has now been in affect for about eight months. The law is limited in that only grocery stores and retail pharmacy's which operate stores over 10,000 square feet are banned from offering shoppers the free plastic bags to pack their purchases in. Department stores and mass merchandisers regardless of size are exempt from the law, as are the city's hundreds of small mom and pop grocery stores, convenience stores and green grocers, among others.

Across the Bay, the city of Oakland has passed a similar law. However it's currently in the courts because an association representing plastic grocery bag manufacturers has challenged the ordinance.

Other California city's, ranging from nearby Bay Area cities Berkeley and Palo Alto, to tiny Willits in the north coast, Davis in the Sacramento region, and Santa Monica and others in Southern California, are proposing outright bans on the single-use plastic carrier bags.

Huge Los Angeles County also is getting ready to propose legislation that would either ban the bags completely or impose a per-bag fee.

The state of California also passed a law last year which requires all supermarket chains and independents with stores over a certain square footage to place plastic grocery bag recycling bins in their stores and to sell reusable shopping totes in each store.

It's this climate which we believe is the reason there hasn't been any significant industry opposition to the proposed per-bag fee legislation thus far. In fact, numerous California grocers seem to be just fine with--and in some cases even supportive of--the proposed bag-fee law which will be voted on in committee on Monday.

Bay Area grocers voice support for per-bag fees at meeting

For example, at a meeting of grocery industry leaders and grocers held yesterday morning by the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Palo Alto, a number of grocers attending the gathering voiced their support of a single-use plastic carrier bag fee rather than seeing outright bans happen on a city-by-city piecemeal basis, which is occurring.

The city of Palo Alto is planning to implement a law on April 28 which will ban plastic grocery bags from being used in the city's 13 largest supermarkets and pharmacy's.

The grocers at yesterday's meeting said they oppose the Palo Alto plastic bag-ban. But not perhaps for the reasons you might think.

Although the grocers oppose the city ordinance, they said it isn't because they have a fondness for the single-use plastic bags. Rather, they argued since laws like the San Francisco bag ban have been implemented (some of the grocers at the meeting have stores in San Francisco as well as in Palo Alto) what they've seen is a surge in shoppers requesting paper bags, even though all of the stores are selling reusable shopping bags for as little as 99 cents each, and have even held free reusable bag giveaway events to encourage shoppers to bring their own bags to the stores.

Dave Bennett, President of local upscale supermarket chain Mollie Stone's, which has a store in San Francisco, along with a number of stores in the region, told the group since the plastic bag ban was enacted in San Francisco "our paper bag usage (in that store) has shot through the roof."

Dan Conway, the corporate director of state and local governmental affairs for supermarket chain Safeway Stores, Inc. which is headquartered in the Bay Area, said paper bags cost grocers about 10 times as much as the single-use plastic carrier bags. He didn't say if Safeway is opposing or supporting the plastic bag fee legislation set for a committee vote on Monday.

The consensus among the grocers at the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce meeting yesterday was that they would go along with some sort of per-bag fee, including putting a surcharge on paper grocery bags as well as plastic carrier bags.

They further said they are in support of an aggressive campaign, which they would help support financially and materially, that would launch an educational program in the city, which is home to Stanford University and many high-tech companies, designed to encourage shoppers to use reusable bags, including holding frequent free reusable bag giveaway days in their stores.

The grocers, along with Tim James who is with the California Grocers Association trade organization and was at the meeting, also said they want all retailers to be included in any law which puts a fee on plastic and paper bags, not just supermarkets and pharmacies.

"Allowing consumers to use plastic bags at some stores, but not at others (types) sends a mixed message," James told the group at the meeting.

Another grocer, John Garcia of the local multi-store independent JJ&F Fine Foods, agreed with James. He said, "My personal feeling is you just make this big bang (a law imposing a fee on both plastic and paper carrier bags) and then there is no confusion. Everybody does the same thing, and it's done."

Safeway's Conway told the group instead of banning the plastic bags, the city council should create a per-bag fee scheme, perhaps indicating that Safeway will support the statewide plastic bag-fee scheme set to be voted on in the Natural Resource Committee on Monday?

"Adding a fee would literally solve the problem with single-use bags," Conway said. "You (the city of Palo Alto)would see the swiftest and most dramatic decline in single-use bags in the entire country, hands down," he added.

Other representatives of Bay Area supermarket chains and independents joined in the chorus saying they too would likely support a single-use plastic carrier bag fee like the one set to be voted on by the Natural Resource State Assembly committee on Monday.

A spokesman for upscale Bay Area-based grocery chain Andronico's Market, which has one store in Palo Alto and others located throughout the Bay Area, said he supported charging a fee for the now free plastic grocery bags.

"You (the city of Palo Alto) need to take it (plastic bag ordinance) to the next step," he said. "If we've been giving these (plastic grocery bags) away since the 1970's and not getting reuse out of them, it seems like the fee would be the most effective; you might even get national attention," he told the Palo Alto city officials who were present at the meeting.

Local independent grocer Steve Piazza, who owns the 3-store upscale Piazza's Fine Foods chain in the area, said he too would go along with a law that imposes a per-bag surcharge on the now free plastic bags, as well as on paper grocery sacks.

The city officials at the meeting, along with the grocers present as well as the local business leaders who are members of the city's Chamber of Commerce, said at the meeting they felt it was an historical morning. The grocers' commented it was the first time they could recall being able to sit down with city officials as a group and be able to give input and perhaps shape or change a policy that effects them directly.

Palo Alto is set to enact its single-use plastic carrier bag ban on April 28. The law will only ban supermarkets and pharmacies over a certain square footage from offering the free, single-use plastic carrier bags in their stores. That's why only 13 local supermarkets are affected by the ban. All other types of retailers, along with smaller grocery and convenience stores will still be able to use the single-use plastic carrier bags.

After the meeting, Phil Bobel, the city's environmental compliance manager who is responsible for making the ban happen on April 28, said he was willing to work with the grocers on the issue, and would consider recommending to his bosses in the city that the upcoming ban perhaps be postponed until September, so the city and grocers could work together on the issue.

Further, he said if the grocers' seriously supported and worked on gaining support in the next few months for a per-bag fee instead of the ban, he might consider suggesting his bosses take that matter to the city council for review before September.

After the meeting however, a number of city officials and others in the audience told us they believe the city will go forward with the single-use plastic carrier bag ban on April 24 because such a large majority of Palo Alto voters are in favor of it.

A number of these actors and observers told us it would be a good idea to impose an across the board per-bag fee for every type of retail store in the city; but not instead of the upcoming April 28 ban, but rather in addition to it.

The argument from many in the city is that these 13 largest supermarkets and pharmacies (especially the supermarkets) account for a much higher percentage of plastic carrier bag use because of the nature and volume of the businesses. As a result, they believe by starting with the largest supermarkets and pharmacies, then moving on perhaps later to other retail classes of trade, they will see an immediate decrease in litter for example, from the bigger-store plastic bag ban.

SoCal grocers not as vocal on the issue...yet

We haven't heard similar support for local or a statewide plastic carrier bag fee law from grocers in Southern California, although since numerous cities in that region have bag-ban laws set to be voted on by city councils soon, they may feel the same way as their Northern California cousins do.

Additionally, Safeway is a major supermarket industry player in Southern California (as in northern) where it operates the Vons' chain. Therefore, if California's leading grocery chain were to support the statewide bag-fee legislation in committee that would go along way to not only gaining similar support from other grocery chains but from the California Grocers Association as well.

Further, as mentioned early in this piece, Los Angeles County is working on passing a law that would impose a charge on all single-use carrier bags used by supermarkets in that highly populated Southern California county.

This means grocery chains like Vons, Ralphs and many others which have stores in Los Angeles County and in numerous other counties in the region, will be able to offer plastic bags in their stores outside Los Angeles County but not in those stores in the country. Piecemeal laws like this can cause havoc for retailers.

In addition, if many of the cities pass their own pending plastic grocery bag bans, that means the region's grocers will end up with a further piecemeal system--some stores in some counties and cities offering plastic bags, while those in the cities with the bans won't be able to.

Most of Southern California's supermarket chain and independent retail companies are likely to come to the same conclusion the grocers at yesterday morning's Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce meeting have we think: that a uniform, statewide single-use plastic carrier bag fee (of say 25 cents a bag) might be far better than either county-by-county or city-by-city outright bans or piecemeal bag fees.

Whole Foods Market to stop using plastic grocery bags on Earth Day

One major event that's going to put single-use plastic carrier bags in general, and the legislation to be voted on in committee on Monday specifically, in the spotlight in California is that on April 22, Earth Day, Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods Market, Inc. will voluntarily stop using single-use plastic carrier bags in all of its stores in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.

Whole Foods' has numerous stores, and is building many more, in California. The supernatural grocer also garners lots of publicity in general in the California media, and will garner even more in the days leading up to the Earth Day self-imposed plastic bag ban.

All of Whole Foods' California stores (and most of those throughout the U.S.) are planning major events on Earth Day, including celebrating the retailer's voluntary plastic bag ban. Whole Foods stores will be giving away free reusable shopping tote bags, selling others at discount and holding major in-store promotions celebrating the earth, environmentalism and sustainability.

No other grocery chains in California have yet to announce that they, like Whole Foods, plan to stop using the single-use plastic carrier bags in their stores.

We expect Earth Day (April 22) and the days leading up to the event and after, to be a watershed moment in terms of the single-use plastic carrier bag issue internationally, nationally in the U.S., and particularly in California if the Natural Resource Committee passes the plastic bag-fee legislation on Monday and sends it to the full California Assembly for a binding vote. Even if passed by the full State Assembly, such a bill would still have to be signed by the governor in order to become law.

Further, if the bill is killed in committee on Monday, that will increase and intensify the local county and city bag-ban legislation efforts in California, which is the focus at the local level rather then per-bag fee legislation.

This story is just beginning. We will be following closely, starting with bringing you the results of the Natural Resources Committee vote on Monday.

The issue is a global one. Single-use plastic carrier bag bans are happening all over the world. Earlier this year the world's largest country, China, banned every retail store in the nation from using the bags. Other Asian countries and numerous African nations are doing the same.

Additionally, the United Kingdom's Parliament is currently debating the enactment of either an outright bag ban or a per-bag charge in that nation. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has already said he is in favor of passing either an outright ban or a per-bag fee scheme before the end of this year.

Ireland has already passed a nationwide law which puts a charge on every single-use plastic bag used by every retailer in that country. The law has been in effect for about two years. The country's government says plastic bag use has been reduced by nearly 90% since the law was passed.

The European Union is discussing a nationwide ban or bag-fee scheme as well. In addition, there is legislation pending in Australia on either a ban of per-bag fee, as there is elsewhere in the world. It's a global issue--and it's heating up.

If the California 25-cent per bag fee legislation does pass, it will have global influence. Not only is California the largest state in the U.S., but it has the world's fifth-largest gross domestic product, which makes its economy even bigger than those of a number of European nations.

The state also is a trend setter in the grocery industry. If the Golden State's grocers and grocery trade associations do support the bag fee legislation, that could open the door for grocers all over the U.S.--and elsewhere like the UK--to do the same. Stay tuned. We will be.

Green Memo Feature: Scientifc Evidence From the Lands and From The Oceans Suggests it's Time to Solve the Plastics Waste Issue

Scientists have recently discovered what they call a "plastic soup" of floating waste in the Pacific Ocean that is growing at an alarming rate, and currently covers an area twice the size of the continental United States. This massive, floating plastic garbage dump stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the California coast, across the northern Pacific, past the Hawaiin Islands and nearly as far as Japan.

American oceanographer Charles Moore was the first scientist to discover what he has named the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch." Moore estimates what he terms as this drifting "trash vortex" contains about 100 million tons of flotsam. Dr. Marcus Eriksen, a collegue of Moore's and director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which was founded by Dr. Moore, says the floating garbage dump is almost like a plastic soup. "It is vast and endless for an area that's about double the size of the continental United States, and is growing rapidly," Dr. Eriksen says.

According to Moore, Eriksen and other researchers, the drifting plastic garbage patch is composed of everything plastic, from shopping bags and plastic packaging, to things like Lego toys, laundry detergent bottles, footballs, empty water bottles, and most everything plastic that is disposed of outside of a landfill or not recycled. The scientists estimate about one-fifth of the plastic waste is thrown off ships or oil platforms, and that the rest--the vast majority--comes from the land and is washed out to sea.

Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer is another researcher who's been working on the buildup of plastics in the ocean issue for over a decade. He makes an analogy of the floating plastic "trash vortex" to a living organism. 'It moves around like a huge animal without a leash," he said at a recent conference on the issue. When the floating garbage patch comes close to land, "the garbage patch 'barfs,' and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic," he says. Dr. Ebbesmeyer and others have observed this "barfing" and the resulting beach being covered with shredded plastic waste on beaches in the Hawaiin archipalago.

Dr. David Karl, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii, says he is launching a major expedition later this year to further investigate and better document the origins of the floating plastic garbage patch. He says he thinks the garbage patch represents a new habitat and recently explained why.

According to Karl, historically, garbage that ends up in the ocean has already biodegraded. However, this is clearly not the case with the giant plastic flotsam. Rather, he suggests modern plastics are so durable that plastic items a half-century old have been found in the Pacific Ocean grabage patch. "Every piece of plastic manufactured in the last fifty years that has made its way into the ocean is still out there," Karl says.

Because the floating patch of plastic trash lies just under the surface of the ocean and is translucent, it can't be detected and viewed in satellite photographs, the researchers said. Rather, it can only be seen from the bows of ships, which is why the scientists have to go out to sea to study the flotsam.

The Pacific Ocean garbage patch has created a cottage industry of sorts. Aquatic garbage scavengers. Above, a scavenger paddles a canoe through the garbage vortex near a Manila waterway in the Philipines. (Courtesy: Getty Images.)

This massive and fast-growing floating plastic garbage dump at sea is posing many problems. For example, according to numerous independent researchers and the United Nations' Environmental Program, plastic debris in the ocean causes the death of at least a million seabirds each year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals. Researchers have found plastic grocery bags, plastic toothbrushes, disposable cigarette lighters and numerous other plastic items inside the stomachs of dead seabirds and marine mammals, who mistake the items for food and ingest them, causing their deaths.

There's agreement among scientists and oceanographic organizations who study the issue, that plastics make up about 90% of all trash floating in the world's oceans. In 2006, a study sponsored by the UN Environmental Program determined that every square mile of ocean contains about 46,000 pieces of floating plastic refuse.

This seaborn plastic garbage doesn't just cause death and health risks to seabirds and mammals, but to humans as well, according to the scientists. Dr. Erikson says it is well excepted that the fast-growing, floating vortex of plastic rubbish poses a risk to human health.

He explains that hundreds of tiny plastic pellets, called nurdles--which are the raw materials the plastic industry uses to make plastic items--are spilled or disposed of every year and work their way into the oceans. These pellets act as chemical sponges of sorts, attracting man-made chemicals such as hydrocarbons and the pesticide DDT to them. They then enter the food chain, he says. "What goes into the ocean goes into these animals (fish, seafood) and onto your dinner plate. It's just that simple," he says.

Our Analysis and Viewpoint: The Ecological Crisis, Plastics Legislation, Taxes and Outright Bans: What to Do?

The scientific evidence on how plastic refuse is affecting the oceans and killing marine birds and mammals, as well as posing human health risks is clear, based on the research of those scientists sited in this piece and many others. What else the waste might be doing in unknown at present, but being researched by ecologists, oceanographers and others.

This oceanic evidence adds to what we already know about the harmful environmental, potential health and economic effects that plastics not recycled or disposed of properly causes on land as well: litter, landfill issues, and the like.

Above is a photograph of 2 million plastic beverage bottles, which happens to be the amount Americans throw away every five minutes. (The photo is by Chris Jordan.)

Taken together--by land and by sea--it's obvious a solution has to be found to this growing crisis. This fact is being recognized in increasing frequency by countries, states, provinces and cities throughout the world. China, for example, has banned thin plastic shopping bags. Beginning in June retail stores in the wrld's most-populous country will no longer be able to use the bags to package customer purchases.

In the USA, cities like San Francisco and Oakland in California also have banned the use of plastic grocery bags by retailers with stores over 10,000 square feet. Currently, more than 50 cities in the U.S. are considering banning the use of plastic shopping bags at retail (prmarily food stores) in one form or another.

Some countries in Africa have banned plastic shopping bags as well. Using a different strategy, the government of South Africa has required manufacturers to make plastic shopping bags much thicker, thus being more durable and expensive, than they normally are. As a result of this law, inacted five years ago, the government says there's been a 90% reduction in use because the bags are so much more expensive.

The government of Australia has recieved agreement from 90% of that country's retailers to stop using plastic bags, and is considering banning them outright nationwide. The state of Victoria already has its own ban on plastic bags.

In the United Kingdom (UK), Parliment is currently debating a ban for most of metropolitan Britian. Vancouver, BC. has banned plastic carrier bags in the city, and there is legislation to do so nationwide making its way through the governmental process in Canada. Other Canadian cities aren't waiting; they're pushing through their own local bag bans.

Ireland has placed a 15-cents per-bag tax on shoppers if they want to have their goods packed in plastic bags. The Irish goverment says there's been a 75% -to- 95% drop in consumer use of the bags since the tax was initiated two years ago. Similarly, in Tawian, the government now requires all retail food stores, convenience stores and restaurants to charge customers extra (a tax) if they want plastic bags and plastic serving utensils. According to the government, this has resulted in a 69% drop in the use of the plastic items over the last six years. The tax went into affect in 2001-2002.

Other states in the U.S., such as California, New York and New Jersey, have taken a different legislative approach instead of new taxes or fees. Last year, California past a statewide law which requires all grocers with stores over a certain size to place plastic bag recycling bins in their stores, and to offer reusable shopping bags for sale in every store. New York and New Jersey recently passed similar legislation for their respective states. Cities in each of these states have the right to ban plastic bags completely however.

Food retailers are getting into the picture on their own as well. U.S.-based Whole Foods Market, Inc. recently announced it will stop using plastic grocery bags in all its stores in the U.S., Canada and the UK in June of this year. Whole Foods will offer only100% recyclable paper bags in its stores, as well as sell reusable grocery carrier bags. The grocer already gives shoppers a 5-cent per bag discount on their grocery purchases for every reusable bag they bring with them to the store, as do many other grocery retailers.

Trader Joe's, the popular U.S. specialty grocer with over 300 stores, doesn't offer plastic bags in its stores at all--never has. Instead it encourages shoppers to use reusable shopping bags, gives them a per-bag discount for doing so, and offers paper bags which it says are made from 100% post-consumer recycled paper.

Why all the focus on plastic shopping or grocery bags?

The reason plastic shopping or grocery bags have been the primary focus of legislation, taxes and outright bans throughout the world is because they are generally the most prevelant form of plastic litter or waste. They clog landfills, taking ages to biodegrade, are found all over the roadsides and elsewhere, and are one of the most common sources of that floating plastic refuse vortex described by the scientists at the top of this story.

Plastic shopping bags however are far from the only source of plastic clogging landfills, being thrown all over the roadsides, and clogging that floating plastic garbage dump in the Pacific Ocean. Legislating, taxing and banning the use of plastic shopping bags might be a good first step, but it's dealing with only a tiny fraction of the problem.

What to do?

What's needed in our view is a comprehensive, market-based and public policy-based effort to deal with the entire disposable plastic waste issue. This effort must invlove all stakeholders: consumers, retailers, product manufacturers who use plastics, plastics manufacturers, governments and non-governmental organization.

We believe countries, states, provinces and cities have the right to legislate, tax and ban the use of plastic bags and other plastic containers and materials. We essentially support much of what's being done on that front in fact.

However, we have a few problems with it to date. First, the scope of the focus is too narrow. As we said above, plastic shopping bags might be a good first step, but its just the tip of the iceberg.

Second, the legislation, taxes and bans are so piecemeal they will end-up causing much confusion in the long run. We don't know how this can be avoided as such piecemeal legislation is part of being a soveriegn government. And in countries like the U.S. and most of the Western world, which use some form of Federalism, states and cities and other localities have the right to make their own laws and create taxation policies within various national restrictions. Further, one can't expect a less-developed country to be able to enact the same type of laws as a developed and rich one.

Lastly, and most importantly, we want to see a mix of market-based incentives (carrots), increased environmental education, and disincentives (sticks) like taxes, legislation and outright bans when needed to address the entire plastic packaging and disposable waste issue.

Towards a comprehensive approach

What do we mean by a comprehensive approach, using a combination of market-based ideas and government public policy: taxes, legislation, bans, and the like?

First, a comprehensive approach is key. This includes governments, the private sector and citizens being onboard. And, of course, this will very from country-to-country. Totalitarian states like China can announce a ban on plastic bags in January, like they did, and say it will go into affect a mere six months later in June (which it will) without any objection. It's a bit harder--thankfully so--in more democratic countries.

We are far from having the answers to a problem as large as this. Nor do we even pretend to know the solution. However, what we do have are ideas, and a framework, which is the comprehensive carrot and stick approach we described above.

Below is our suggestions and basic overview of how such an approach to trying to solve the plastic waste issue and the associated health, ecological and economic problems that come with it might work.

First, it's a fact that if citizens were more responsible, recycled plastics regularly where it's available, didn't litter, and were more careful with their personal consumption, the issue would probably be at least onlyhalf as bad as it currently is. As such, any discussion of solving the problem we believe must start from the point of personal and indivual responsibility.

Left to their own devices however, we suspect it will take many decades or more for individuals to see the "green" light and become more environmentally responsible. We must say though that compared to let's say the 1980's, just 25 years ago, environmental responsibility among most consumers has increased dramatically. This has been largely because of environmental education programs created by various groups and governments and aimed at consumers. Over the last 10 years the private sector also has started to jump in and offer such education as well. It works. Not near 100% of course. But it has a positive effect over time.

Education: The first part of our comprehensive solution model then is a dramatic increase globally in environmental and ecological education as it relates to the use of plastics and its affect on the environment. This effort needs to be paid for by taxpayers, plastic companies, manufacturers who sell plastic goods, and the retailers who sell them. A joint effort, with all stakeholders buying in. What's needed is at least double the environmental educational efforts we see today.

Industry R&D Economic Incentive Package: The second part of this comprehensive blueprint involves government and the plastics industry. Governments in those countries that have plastics manufacturers should create a massive program, including tax incentives and other economic bonuses, with a mandate to the plastics industry to come up with more rapidly-biodegrading plastic bags, bottles, containers and the like.

This incentive package--say an initial five year program--comes with a stick: that if the plastic companies take the economic incentives but don't make progress, they will face further legislation, more taxes and other penalties. These are all coming anyway--so they would be wise to get onboard if such an incentive package comes there way.

Industry Efforts and Pressure: Product manufacturers must put more pressure on the plastics' industry to innovate better and faster, creating new plastics from plant-based products that biodegrade faster. Retailers in turn need to put more heat on their suppliers who use plastic packaging to create products--like concentrated laundry detergents for example--that reduce plastic in the packaging, and to even innovate new packaging that eliminates plastic completely.

Retailers also need to increasingly make policy decisions like Whole Foods' has on its self-banning of plastic bags, and like Wal-Mart is doing with its recently introduced packaging scorecard, which will eventually mandate that its suppliers use a minimum of 25% less plastic in their packages than they currently do, or else the retailer will not buy that particular item from the supplier. This policy process at retail--the place where the consumer and the retailer interact directly--not only will help eliminate much plastics waste in the short run, it also will have the long run result--if practiced by enough big retail chains--of making the plastics industry realize they better innovate and make changes or face serious sales losses.

For example, are disposable plates made out of plastic really a good thing? They are far too durable for just a single-use and then disposal. On the other hand, they don't hold up well in the dishwasher. How many people really wash them by hand (you can get multiple-uses that way). Probably zero. Paper plates, which can be recycled, and reusable plates, which can be washed by hand or go in the dishwasher and last for decades, are the way to go. Disposable plastic plates, which are sort of a mid-point between recyclable paper and reusable plates, are an example of what we feel is a superfluous product. Companies of course have the right to make the plastic disposable plates, but the demand is questionable.

Retailers also must increase the pressure on their suppliers to go back to the plastics industry and let them know that if they don't innovate at a much faster place they stand to loose business because the suppliers' customers, the retailers, are telling them they want source- reduction, rapid biodegradable plastics, and other innovations.

Consumer Power: Consumers must also get more skin in this game. They need to start voting more with their shopping dollars. Buying more products packaged minimally or alternatively, eliminating purchases of plastic utensils and other items that have alternatives, and telling their grocers and other retailers they demand less plastic in the products they buy. This includes bringing their own reusable shopping bags to the store, saying no to excessive plastic takeout food packaging, and a myriad of other consumer-focused behaviors, which are probably the most important factors or elements of all those described in this blueprint.

Law Enforcement: Government (s) needs to get serious in terms of fines and penalties for littering and other unlawful waste disposal. Something on the order of a $500 fine for tossing a plastic grocery bag or water bottle in the street might provide an economic incentive for people to avoid doing so the next time they think about it.

Legislation: Legislation will continue along the lines it currently is. Some countries creating laws which try to influence behavior, others creating new taxes on plastic packaging (like the bag legislation), and still others passing outright bans. Our only thought here is that to the greatest extent possible, governments should try to shoot for uniformity when they can. It does little overall good in the larger sense to have a plastic bag ban in San Francisco, for example, when plastic bag use in South San Francisco, less than a mile away, is legal. States and provinces will have to take the lead on this uniformity for it to happen.

In some cases outright bans might be needed. We are pretty free-choice when it comes to such things. However, we also realize that at times problems can be so serious that such free choice has to be modified: You can't drive drunk in most places in the world, minors can't buy tobacco products, grocers must keep there stores clean, and even in the U.S. you can get arrested for yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre if there really isn't a fire.

In the case of plastic bags, we think its time for most retailers to just say no more to the use of the regular, non-biodegradable plastic bags. There are decent biodegradable bags on the market--and they are getting better. There's really no reason, except not wanting to invest, that plastics companies can't make a superior biodegradeable shopping bag today. The science is there. All that's required is some investment. A few more Whole Foods'-style self plastic bag bans by big retailers--Wal-Mart, Target, Safeway, Kroger for example--and we will see a superior, biodegradable shopping bag on the market in no time flat.

Plastics Fees or Taxes: We think its time for countries like the U.S., the UK and others to creeate a plastics fee or tax structure. This fee or tax would be shared by the plastics industry, manufactuerers who make plastic products and use plastic packaging (laundry detergent, milk jugs and the like), retailers and consumers. Everybody needs to be all in. If you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

For example, lets use a plastic gallon milk jug or laundry detergent bottle to illustrate our example. Everybody down the line--the company that made the plastic, the consumer products' company or milk processor who uses the plastic container, the wholesaler or retail chain that buys it, and consumers who purchase the product at the store, would all pay some portion of a per-unit fee for the item. The same would be the case with plastic packaging, products like toothbrushes, disposable razors and on and on.

The proceeeds from this across the board, shared tax would go into a fund in the respective country. The fund would be used for plastics product and packaging innovation, creating new, alternatives to plastic packaging, and for the clean-up of the lands and the seas.

As we've said, ours is a big picture blueprint. It's designed to stimulate thought and further ideas. Obviously, god, or the devil, is in the details, which would have to be worked out on a country-by-country basis.

The time to start acting on all these fronts is now. That floating plastic refuse mass in the ocean is only going to get bigger. More seabirds and mammals will die. And we know that when other species are dying in large numers of a specific cause, its likely we can be affected similarly in time.

The world's landfills also are getting fuller. Taxpayers are the ones who will have to pay for new ones. Taxpayers also pay for the litter cleanup, and will eventually have to foot the bill for the ocean mess, unless a tax-sharing scheme like we described above is worked out so that industry shares in the costs and solutions as well as taxpayers. There will be many future costs that will have to be paid as well as scientists and others make further discoveries.

Further, we all know about oil, the primary ingredient in plastics. Its getter more expensive, people are killing for it, and it is running out. A greener solution to the plastics situation makes sense not only morally, but also ecologically, economically and health-wise. In fact, its ultimately a survival issue.

Issue Resources:

Below are links to a few stories and articles you might like to read in conjunction with our piece:

>Charles Moore. "Trashed: Across the Pacific Ocean, plastics, plastics everywhere." Natural History Magazine, November, 2003.
>Steve Connor. "Why plastic is the scourge of sea life." The Independent, February 5, 2008.

>Jane Black. "Plastic bags, Headed for a Meltdown." Washington Post, February 6, 2008.

>Terry Ross. "Paper or plastic question would be useful again." Arizona Sun, February 9, 2008.

>Tom Spears, "Truth and rumours muddy plastics debate." National Post, February 10, 2008.

>Aimee Neistat, "Bagging the plastic," Jerusalem Post, February 10, 2008.

Note: Graphic at top of page courtesy London Independent.