By Alan Pryor
Indeed, eliminating these costs of cleanup and litter control were the main reasons that some of the best run and most progressive cities throughout California have implemented plastic bag restrictions in recent years. These have included Palo Alto, San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara County in Northern California; Santa Monica, Long Beach, and Los Angeles County in Southern California; and San Luis Obispo County in Central California to name just a few.
Although the City of Davis does a reasonable job staying ahead of and controlling plastic bag littler compared to other cities that have considerably less resources, still hardly a day goes by when you cannot see plastic bag litter blowing along some street or pathway in the City or caught in trees or shrubs along our greenbelts and bike paths.
Unfortunately, however, areas in the countryside just outside Davis are not so fortunate to have these regular cleaning services and mother nature recently provided a very poignant lesson about how easily plastic bag litter can get out of control . A good case in point is the area surrounding the County landfill on Co. Rd. 28H which was turned into a shocking plastic bag trash zone by the recent windstorms buffeting Northern California mid last week.
A Plastic Bag Trash Pile in Wildlife Habitat
I personally witnessed this blight last Sunday morning as I drove along Rd. 28H just past the landfill north of Davis. Initially, I saw dozens and dozens of specks of white in the slough to the south of the landfill. Because the slough is slightly below grade, I turned onto the adjoining gravel road directly adjacent to the slough to get a better look thinking it was a flock of migrating birds that had landed. Lo and behold, though, the white specks turned out to be thousands of plastic bags strewn for about a half-mile along the width of the slough as shown in the following photos.
Looking across the road it was obvious they had been blown from the land fill over the retaining fence during the wind storm.
Even worse, driving back to the freeway and West Sac along Co. Rd 105, I counted over 200 plastic bags in the weeds, trees, and barb wire fences along the roadways before even getting to the freeway. Some of these bags were over a mile away from the landfill. Once on I-80, I counted another 72 bags flapping in the wind while caught in the barbed wire fence south of the freeway adjoining the Yolo bypass. Since then I spent a few hours picking up some of that litter in the slough but estimated it would take one person easily two weeks or more to retrieve all of the plastic bag litter and even then many dozens of bags would have been lost in adjoining private fields after being disked into the ground.
NRC Meets to Consider Single-Use Bag Restrictions
It was against this backdrop that the Davis Natural Resources Commission met last Monday night in Council Chambers to consider furtherance of the proposed single-use bag ordinance. The initial proposed ordinance was developed and submitted by the Commission’s Zero-Waste Subcommittee to the NRC last November (see Vanguard article on November 23rd, “NRC to Consider Restrictions on Single-Use Plastic Bags“ for a description of that proposed ordinance).
In its simplest form, the proposed ordinance was quite similar to other municipal ordinances recently enacted in California. The proposed ordinance would only restrict distribution of handled, carry-out plastic bags by Davis retailers with annual sales in excess of $1,000,000. Restrictions on the thinner, handle-less plastic bags shoppers use for meats and produce within a store were NOT included in that proposed ordinance for sanitary reasons. Further, restaurants and fast food establishments are exempt as are pharmacies when dispensing prescriptions.
A 10 cent per bag charge was proposed to be applied to all full-size paper bags distributed by affected retailers to encourage people to bring their own reusable bags. However, those allowed paper bags must be recyclable and contain 40% post-consumer content as is the case with all similar municipal ordinances. The 10 cent charge is the presumed estimated cost of recovery incurred by stores for distribution of the recyclable large sized paper bags and is also the most common fee imposed by other municipalities with such ordinances. Davis Food Coop shoppers are well aware of the impacts of this type of ordinance as the Coop has eliminated single-use take-out plastic bags for years but only charges $0.05 for a paper bag.
Additionally, exemptions would be allowed for free distribution of bags to low income customers participating in either the California Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children or in the Supplemental Food Program. Thus, low income customers, especially with children, will not incur additional costs for bags. Others can always use reusable bags and not incur any charges.
The single-use bag ordinance proposed to the NRC last November was originally received by an enthusiastic audience of supporters including a dozen or so citizens of Davis and a few dozen representatives from the University of California at Davis chapter of the California Public Interest Research Group (CalPIRG). At that meeting one Davis resident presented a 5 ft high by 3 ft diameter bag of compressed plastic bags which he had collected from a dumpster behind the local Davis branch store of a large national retailer. The myriad of different colored discarded bags showed that the bags had clearly been turned into the store to be recycled rather than being the result of the stores own internal operations. Rather than recycling the bags, however, the store merely dumped them into the trash to be sent to the County landfill.
Other Davis residents talked about their experiences collecting wayward plastic bags from all parts of the City including parks, walkways and paths, streets and parking lots, and open spaces and water ways. Then, representatives of CalPIRG presented over 4,500 individually signed petitions to the NRC signed by UCD students requesting the City ban plastic bags. All the evening’s speakers favored elimination of the distribution of the plastic bags by Davis retailers and no one spoke in favor of retaining plastic bags.
The issue of regulation of single-use bags was again on last Monday’s NRC agenda on February 27. At that meeting, Staff produced their own recommendation to the NRC after first consulting with the City Attorney, local business groups, and the Sacramento-based non-profit group, Californians Against Waste (CAW). CAW has been actively engaged with every municipality and County in the State that has implemented such single-use bag ordinances thus far and is currently working with several dozen other jurisdictions throughout the state to develop and implement their own ordinances. After these consultations, Staff proposed to the NRC the following timetable and procedure for future evaluation and possible progression of the ordinance to the City Council:
Feb. 27 – NRC approves CEQA process and schedule
Mar. 26 – NRC approves draft ordinance for CEQA process
Mar-May – Policy outreach coordinating with NRC and business community
June – City Council adopts/certifies CEQA documentation (CEQA)
July – City Council adopts ordinance
July-Sept – Business and community implementation outreach”
Staff indicated it would additionally meet with the local Chamber of Commerce and the DDBA to discuss the proposed single-use bag policy and conduct a local business roundtable/workshop with the NRC to share information and hear direct feedback from the business community.
Staff emphasized that their recommendation for a proposed ordinance in March would only be the starting point for environmental review purposes and they expected substantial input from citizens, business groups, and environmental groups during the process.
Staff also indicated that they believed the City should pursue a Negative Declaration or Mitigated Negative Declaration for compliance with the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). A Negative Declaration states that the City has evaluated all possible environmental consequences associated with the proposed ordinance and finds that there are no adverse environmental consequences associated with its passage. A Mitigated Negative Declaration states the City feels there are only minor or insignificant environmental consequences which can simply be mitigated by adoption of certain provisions minimizing the minor environmental impacts.
Both the Negative Declaration and Mitigated Negative Declaration are a “middle-road” approach compared to performing a more stringent, full-blown Environmental Impact Review (EIR) or simply stating there are obviously no adverse environmental impacts and thus the project can declared to have a Categorical Exemption from environmental review under CEQA.
The presence or absence of an EIR and its sufficiency has had important consequences for early adopters of single-use bag ordinances in the past. This is because the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, a front group for plastic bag manufacturers, routinely sued any jurisdiction implementing a plastic bag ban or a single-use bag ordinance.
These early suits generally claimed that the single-use bag ordinances are “projects” subject to CEQA review and aimed to force municipalities to spend money on expensive Environmental Impact Reviews or water down their proposed ordinances.
While many non-profit agencies and municipalities did not believe that plastic bag restrictions were subject to CEQA, some cities decided to conduct full Environmental Impact Reviews under CEQA before implementing their ordinances. These include the City of San Jose and the County of Los Angeles, among others. More recently, other cities have relied on Mitigated Negative Declarations or simple Negative Declarations stating that no extensive environmental impact reviews are necessary.
One City, Manhattan Beach in Southern California, took the most expeditious route by simple claiming a Categorical Exemption before enacting their ordinance. Clearly attempting to forestall this potentially fast growing trend toward reliance on simple Categorical Exemptions, the Save the Bag Coalition filed a lawsuit to overturn Manhattan Beach’s single-use bag ordinance on the grounds that paper bags have a greater negative effect on the environment than plastic bags. The suit demanded that an environmental study or review be done before the Manhattan Beach ordinance went into effect.
Last summer, the California Supreme Court heard the City of Manhattan Beach’s appeal of the lower court decision requiring they prepare a CEQA Environmental Impact Review for their proposed single-use bag ordinance. On July 14, 2011, however, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of Manhattan Beach affirming that their declared exemption from CEQA requirements for an Environmental Impact Review Report was proper.
The California Supreme Court ruling means that Manhattan Beach can restrict retailers from distributing single-use plastic bags, as is proposed in Davis by the NRC Zero Waste subcommittee, without going through a lengthy and expensive environmental study to determine the possible adverse effects of any potential increased use of paper bags. The unanimous court decision stated that “substantial evidence and common sense” show that the single-use bag restrictions wouldn’t harm the environment. Justice Carol Corrigan, writing for the entire court, concluded there would be no environmental harm caused by the restrictions.
Thus, local governments should be safe from intimidation of possibly successful future industry lawsuits if they enact single-use bag ordinances without a full CEQA Environmental Impact Review.
Following Staff’s presentation, the NRC next heard from a representative of the California Grocers Association (GCA). He stated the GCA had been actively involved in the development of the proposed single-use bag ordinance which failed in the State Senate last year and that they had also been consulted by and followed developments in other jurisdictions that had implemented single-use bag ordinances. He stated that the CGA accepts that prohibitions on single-use bags are the new norm and that their membership will adjust to accommodate these restrictions as necessary. He further stated that their primary concern is that any ordinances be broad enough so as to not provide any competitive advantage to their competitors such as convenience stores or gas station marts. This is a concern to the CGA because they have profit margins only averaging 1% and any competitive disadvantage imposed on them is taken very seriously.
He said the biggest obstacle for their member grocers was acceptance of the single-use bag ordinances by customers and convincing them that this is not a money-making effort on their part. He said it takes time for some customers to adjust to the fact that there are no more free bags but reminded the Commissioners that there never were free bags because the costs of the “free” bags were imbedded in the pricing of their food products they sold.
The next speaker was the Executive Director of Californians Against Waste who indicated he was willing to continue to provide assistance or input into the process as they have done with many California municipalities and counties. He said he agreed with Staff’s decision to pursue a Negative Declaration as compared to affirming a Categorical Exemption although he felt both determinations were acceptable in light of the Supreme Court ruling. He stated he was inclined towards performing an environmental checklist leading to a Negative Declaration, though, because he felt it would make the City’s position more defensible if the plastic bag coalition choose to challenge the City’s ordinance in the future. He indicated he thought this might be a possibility only because Davis has a reputation as an environmental leader and it would be the first inland City to implement such a single-bag ordinance.
After a brief discussion by the Commissioners, a motion was made to approve Staff’s development and implementation timetable and the Commissioners approved the motion unanimously. The next hearing will be on March 26 at 6:30 in Council Chambers.
still hardly a day goes by when you cannot see plastic bag litter blowing along some street or pathway in the City or caught in trees or shrubs along our greenbelts and bike paths.
I seriously question the validity of this statement: many days go by that I don’t see plastic bag litter.
Pryor: “Restrictions on the thinner, handle-less plastic bags shoppers use for meats and produce within a store were NOT included in that proposed ordinance for sanitary reasons. Further, restaurants and fast food establishments are exempt as are pharmacies when dispensing prescriptions.”
lol… very hypocritical…..
“I seriously question the validity of this statement: many days go by that I don’t see plastic bag litter.”
Then you are simply not looking, they are literally all over the place as those photos clearly show.
I’m with 91 Octane. This supposed plastic bag problem is being way overblown (pardon the pun). It’s obvious that the pushers of this ban are now in high gear and revving things up prior to the upcoming council decision.
“Unfortunately, however, areas in the countryside just outside Davis are not so fortunate to have these regular cleaning services…”
….useful work for County jail inmates who want a day outside of the facility.
[quote]He said the biggest obstacle for their member grocers was acceptance of the single-use bag ordinances by customers and convincing them that this is not a money-making effort on their part. He said it takes time for some customers to adjust to the fact that there are no more free bags but reminded the Commissioners that there never were free bags because the costs of the “free” bags were imbedded in the pricing of their food products they sold.[/quote]
And are those “embedded” costs of the plastic bags going to be removed from the price of groceries?
[quote]Then you are simply not looking or more likely not paying attention, they are literally all over the place as those photos clearly show.[/quote]
I go on daily walks and rarely see plastic bag litter – I am much more apt to see paper litter …
Then you are simply not looking or more likely not paying attention, they are literally all over the place as those photos clearly show.
or more likely I’m not cherry-picking locations the way you do….
[quote]And are those “embedded” costs of the plastic bags going to be removed from the price of groceries? [/quote]I know Nugget gives you a few cents off when you use your own bags… 5 cents, and that may be per bag… not sure. CVS has a ‘program’, too… Safeway does not, to my knowledge. Not sure about other stores.
It’s interesting to note that Alan’s photos of plastic bags, which have blown off the Yolo Landfill, show them collecting in Willow Slew, which drains into the Sacramento River Deep Water Chanel, which drains into The Sacramento River, which drains into San Francisco Bay, and finally into the Pacific Ocean.
This fact completely negates opponents view that only coastal cities need implement bag restrictions for purposes of sea life preservation. As an active diver I can attest to the millions of plastic bags that migrate into the seas of the world.I congratulate the NRC for realizing the importance of plastic bag restrictions for inland communities.
Anybody who fails to see plastic litter, wherever they go, on a daily basis must have their head stuck in the sand or someplace else where the sun don’t shine.
Octane and Rusty need to get out more often.
Honestly, I walk in West Davis all the time, and do not see plastic bag litter…
Elaine: Let’s think about why that might be – (1) direction of the prevailing winds will blow bag toward the east and the south. (2) West Lake does not use plastic bags of the sort that are the problem. So you would have to go to Safeway well to the east to find a source of such bags. The fact that they end up in the bypass makes sense for those reasons and the wind pattern.
[quote]A 10 cent per bag charge was proposed to be applied to all full-size paper bags distributed by affected retailers to encourage people to bring their own reusable bags.[/quote]I wish the paper bag charge component was not included in this proposed ordinance. Separate the issues.
While our family makes an effort to always use our own bags or just carry stuff out by hand, there are times that it is nice to have a paper grocery bag…if you can get one.
Paper grocery bags are made of unbleached paper, generally with recycled content. (Unbleached paper is more environmentally benign than bleached paper, due to the use of toxic substances in the bleaching process. All colored paper, BTW, is bleached.) Paper grocery bags are useful in the home ([b][i]often replacing plastic[/i][/b] bag liners in garbage cans, for instance). They made of a durable stock that is useful for a number of things, including wrapping boxes for mailing, protecting surfaces from glue, paint or other messy substances, etc. Of the few paper grocery bags that enter our household, [i]all[/i] of them are used for some other purpose before recycling. And paper grocery bags are biodegradable.
There are literally [i][b]pounds[/b][/i] of undesired bleached and unbleached paper that arrive at our homes every week. I’m sure that our family receives at least two pounds of junk mail every week. (It is usually deposited in the recycle bin before it even reaches the house.)
On a recent Sunday, I weighed the content of our two newspapers (the [i]Bee[/i] and the [i]Enterprise[/i]). The Bee contained 9 ounces of actual news/feature content, and 15 ounces of annoying advertisement “free standing inserts.” The [i]Enterprise[/i] contained 4 ounces of news/feature content and 10 ounces of ads. (In both cases, only the separate ad inserts were counted as such – ads that appear in the content sections ([i]e.g.[/i] the “A” section of the [i]Bee[/i]) were not counted with the separate ad sections.) And this wasn’t even on a big advertising weekend (e.g., the President’s Day weekend).
Grand total ([i]Enterprise[/i] plus the [i]Bee[/i]):
13 ounces (34%) of news content
25 ounces (66%) of ad inserts
Based on what arrives at our home, I suspect there are over 10 tons of junk mail and newspaper ad inserts distributed in Davis every week.
We support the minimization of unwanted paper. Paper grocery bags, however, are actually useful…and they are only a small fraction of the paper that enters our home (or is recycled before it reaches the front door).
I’m not going to argue side issues… we all know the driving forces behind this ban….
progressives want a bill that allows them to throw their collective weight on corporations to make themselves feel big….
Green and Golden: “Octane and Rusty need to get out more often.”
or maybe you do….
“Octane and Rusty need to get out more often.”
I jog 3 miles everyday with my dog. My jog is on land about a mile south of the landfill. Very seldom do I see any trash and if I do there’s just as much chance it’s a potato chip bag or candy wrapper as it is a plastic bag. You’d think it would be strewn with plastic bags if you listen to these bag banners. Mind you, unlike you that are looking for something to get in an uproar about my face isn’t in the bushes looking for bags.
[quote](1) direction of the prevailing winds will blow bag toward the east and the south. [/quote]To the south, yes. To the east, not so much.
The most common wind directions (“prevailing winds”) in Davis are from the north (including north-northwest) and south (south-southwest through south-southeast). Winds from the west (which would blow towards the east) are quite infrequent (less than a few percent of the time) and are generally at very low wind speeds when they do occur. If I can figure out how to post an image, I will post a wind rose (a wind direction/wind speed frequency distribution diagram) prepared from data from the weather station at UCD.
You know what they say, “if you’re looking for trouble you’re going to find it”. I think that describes these bag banners to a tee.
Rusty49
So do you believe that Alan’s pictures were staged, or that I “made up” the 72 plastic bags that I counted along the south side of the freeway fence a few months ago ? it is one thing to say that you don’t care about an issue. It is quite another to pretend it doesn’t exist just be ause you don’t see it on your daily run.
ERM wrote,[i]”Honestly, I walk in West Davis all the time, and do not see plastic bag litter…”.[/i]
Elaine, Please take a look in the West Davis Pond next time you are on a walk.
Also, everybody please take a minute to view this humorous piece on the Pacific Garbage Patch, http://front.moveon.org/have-you-ever-seen-a-wildlife-documentary-like-this/?rc=daily.share&id=35708-19202552-wnwTYbx It’s worth the time to cut and paste the url.
[quote]”Although the City of Davis does a reasonable job staying ahead of and controlling plastic bag littler compared to other cities that have considerably less resources….”[/quote]So, now we’ve got the windstorm plastic blow, we can acknowledge the reason that Dunning, Elaine and all the rest of us blind folk don’t a plastic shopping bag problem around Davis–rich mystery elves that rush around town just ahead of us to pick them up.
If we can just organize a work crew to show up at the county dump each time we get a windstorm. Since it appears most of those bags are from Woodland stores, we should get lots of volunteers from up north. Of course, we’ll only need to mobilize once or twice a year.
This story also was covered by the local newspaper. Volunteers already out and about grabbing flying plastic. Odd that the arms full of plastic sheets, etc., didn’t show a single shopping bag–what was that all about?
The timing is key. A windstorm at the dump here, a bag carefully hooked to branches near Putah Creek there, a cute kid talking to a weirdo wearing a suit of baggies here, a plastic bottle with kanji on the beach at Santa Cruz there–to what does it all add up?
Time for city government to outlaw all plastic bags in Davis. Well, not all bags…not [u]those[/u] plastic bags, not plastic bags for [u]those[/u] people, not plastic bags used for [u]those[/u] purposes…just enough bags to allow us to join those other towns and call this campaign a win.
Time for city to avoid dealing with the important problems facing the council. Time to fiddle around the edges some more.
Does anyone know if most grocery stores in Davis have a plastic bag recycling bin?
I know Grocery Outlet does (I recycle my plastic bags there), but am unsure about other stores like Safeway or Nugget (I keep forgetting to check when I’m there).
if the plastic bag banners are so worried about it, why don’t they take the energy they devote to bitching about it in their blogs and use it to organize a clean up party? then have at it, and clean up the mess themselves….
wow, what a novel idea!!! but that might be some work… we wouldn’t want that, now would we?
[quote]Based on what arrives at our home, I suspect there are over 10 tons of junk mail and newspaper ad inserts distributed in Davis every week.
[/quote]
Now I could get behind a ban on those things!
More than a few “plastic bag banners” have been, and will be, out and about near the landfill collecting blown trash. All are welcome to join me on the levee road due south of the landfill this Sunday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. to pick up trash.
Janet, this is the kind of action this kind of problem needs. Thank you for your efforts.
If you have any influence on any city council members, please encourage them to take environmental action approaches instead of trying to outlaw or ban useful products.
Our family picks up trash and recyclable litter while walking around town. We use less than 25% of the plastic bags we did before reusable bags became so promoted and plentiful. The ones we do get are saved, reused instead of baggies and/or returned to stores that collect them, etc.
We buy more bulk foods and avoid many of the needlessly overly packaged. We’re please when we can find ways to do better. I’d guess that we’re fairly typical of Davis residents.
We don’t need the divisive bag-banning fight now underway in our town.
“More than a few “plastic bag banners” have been, and will be, out and about near the landfill collecting blown trash. All are welcome to join me on the levee road due south of the landfill this Sunday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. to pick up trash.”
Something tells me the Enterprise, and/or the NRC and/or the Vanguard will be out there too for the “photo op”.
Rusty49: I believe you mean photo op, not “photo op.”
I’m on a quest to fight unnecessary quotation marks.
These pictures speak volumes.
Unless: the plastic bag enviro-wackos probably put them there! To thwart freedom!
Rusty49
And if such a photo op raised public awareness of the issue and led to more people participating in clean ups and/ or encouraged people to be less cavalier in regard to littering and less wasteful of resources, would that not be the kind of positive voluntary effort that some feel we should be pursuing as opposed to new ordinances ?
“Janet, this is the kind of action this kind of problem needs. Thank you for your efforts.
“We don’t need the divisive bag-banning fight now underway in our town.”
” These pictures speak volumes.”
This conversation reminds me of an evolution of thought and practice that has occurred in medicine over the past 30 years. When I was first in training, a great deal of time and energy was put into how to manage and cure disease once it was advanced and very little emphasis was placed on prevention. Over time we have come to realize that it is much more cost effective to prevent the development of the disease in the first place and much more energy is being devoted to seeing early signs of a potential problem and educating, providing immunizations and screenings to either prevent a disease from developing or to catch it in its earliest stages before it becomes a serious issue.
I truly do not see why this has to be such “a divisive issue” and why we cannot work on it from both sides, both prevention,in terms of minimizing the number of bags available to be blown about, and also working on the clean up side to capture those that have escaped. If we had been diligent in preventing litter and trash accumulation then Janet and all the like minded citizens who participate in these clean ups would be out of a trash collection job and could concentrate on what some consider more pressing issues.
“…
Based on what arrives at our home, I suspect there are over 10 tons of junk mail and newspaper ad inserts distributed in Davis every week
Now I could get behind a ban on those things!”
There is a sentiment I completely share. I had tried, unsuccessfully of course, to request that my copies of the Enterprise and the Bee be delivered without the unwanted adds, and tried requesting ,also unsuccessfully, to block delivery of unsolicited junk mail to my home. In each case I was told that was not an option. There is an easy solution with regard to the newspapeers. I simply get them exclusively on line now.I have yet to find a solution to the seemingly endless stream of junk adds that arrive daily including from companies that I have directly contacted with the request to stop their mailings. If anyone has found a solution to this, I would love to hear it.
[quote]”I have yet to find a solution to the seemingly endless stream of junk adds that arrive daily including from companies that I have directly contacted with the request to stop their mailings. If anyone has found a solution to this, I would love to hear it.”[/quote]Many years ago, I read about one strategy for any company that include return-postage-paid envelopes. Stuff as much of their advertising along with a note to quite and anything else you can jamb in to increase their postage bill.
I did this a few times, but never knew whether it was hopelessly ineffective and just gave me a sense of satisfaction or did some good. It certainly didn’t reduce the overall amount of junk.
The modern way is to opt out permanently or for a five-year (trial?). I don’t know if it works any better than my old way. Here’s how:
[url]http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt063.shtm[/url]
JustSaying
Thanks for sending the info. I will try to opt out on line.
I do have a slightly amusing story about my attempt to stop receiving unsolicited packets of magazines to place in my waiting room. Frustrated with receiving unwanted packets of about twenty magazines monthly, I returned one of their promotional cards with the request that they stop sending the magazine to me. My effort was rewarded by receiving twice the number of magazines thereafter ! Sensing the possibility of a “Sorcer’s Apprentice” like scenario, I capituled. I continued receiving double packets until I moved. They don’t seem to have found me yet !
Please send your surplus magazines over to Kaiser. Some of their waiting room material goes back three years.
JustSaying
Somehow I think 40 copies of Parent and Child might surpass even Kaiser’s waiting room needs !