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.

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.