On December 19, the Seattle City Council voted to ban plastic shopping bags, but that was the easy part. The challenge, as the council learned the hard way two years ago, will be staving off an attempt to repeal that law. This time, council members believe they have a silver bullet.
In a notable about-face, a coalition of the largest grocery store chains says it will formally back the council’s law. That would save roughly 1,000,000 plastic bags per major grocery store each year, according to Northwest Grocery Association (NWGA) president Joe Gilliam. His group represents the city’s grocery giants, including Safeway, QFC, and Fred Meyer.
“We support this right now,” Gilliam says. What if the ordinance is challenged with a ballot referendum? “It’s possible that we would contribute to the campaign to uphold the law,” Gilliam says.
That’s a very different tune than NWGA sang two years ago, when it expressed concerns with an ordinance placing a fee on all shopping bags, paper and plastic. “The Nickels administration was married to this idea of a 20-cent bag tax that went to government—that was a nonstarter,” Gilliam explains. His group stayed “neutral” on that fight “and we all saw the results of it,” he says. The American Chemistry Council funded a $1.4 million campaign that ultimately overturned that measure in August 2009.
But this time, grocery store operators like a provision that allows them to keep a nickel for each paper bag, a model Seattle is copying from similar successful laws passed this year in Bellingham and Mukilteo. That would offset the cost of switching from plastic to paper, which costs the average grocery store about $60,000 a year.
Gaining the support of big grocers is a political win for Council Member Mike O’Brien, the bill’s sponsor, who has been consulting grocers since early summer (an independent grocery group is still opposed). “This approach is not a new tax,” says O’Brien, explaining why the new model attracts previous opponents. And avoiding higher costs for grocers avoids passing on higher costs to shoppers. He adds, “Everyone except the plastic lobby agrees the environmental problem is real.”
Even though city residents use an estimated 292 million plastic bags a year, the city estimates that only 13 percent of those bags are recycled.
In what may be a sign of opposition to come, bag maker Hilex Poly took out an expensive half-page ad in the Seattle Times three days before the council vote, declaring their opposition to “new fees, fines and bans!”
However, Gilliam and council members hope the grocery industry’s support could allow this measure to stick—and neutralize the plastic bag lobby’s sway on the public. Gilliam explains, “As people see the retail community supports doing the right thing environmentally, and that there is a way to do it without causing the price of groceries to go up, I think that has value.” 
“Even though city residents use an estimated 292 million plastic bags a year, the city estimates that only 13 percent of those bags are recycled.”
The CITY ESTIMATES. This is not fact. They’re also trying to use the 20 bags found in the whale’s stomach as a reason, but they are not saying what else was found in that whale, like surgical gloves, sweatpants, and a golfball or two.
If you put a paper bag down on a wet Seattle sidewalk while waiting for the bus, guess what happens to it? If you’re so poor you can’t make ends meet and can’t afford a bunch of reusable bags (which are also made from plastics), you might be exempt from the $1/bag TAX (call it what you want, it’s still a non-item charge). Those in agreement with this ban are the same stupid greenies who pushed the plastic bags in the first place, because using so many paper bags killed too many trees, blah blah blah…in 20 years, it’ll be the same bullshit again…”You’re killing trees, when plastic is waterproof, reusable, cheaper to make, cheaper to transport, lighter to haul, smaller to store!” They ASSUME people aren’t recycling them, but as evidenced by the newspaper article (about 700 comments), many people reuse them for other purposes rather than direct recycling.
The fact that this IDIOTIC city council seems to have NOTHING better to do (not to mention Conlin sending an INSULTING e-mail to a VOTER who e-mailed him, calling those who are against the ban ‘cheapasses’ and ‘freeloaders’ who expect everyone else to pay higher food bills to use plastic bags. Apparently, he’s too STUPID to know bags are already factored in, and this ban is NOT going to make prices drop! But, this is what your shitty council thinks of you who oppose them. No wonder this city is in the cesspool that it is…blind morons who focus on the wrong things, and focus on those things wrongly.
By the way, the commenter that got the e-mail published it for us:
“Thanks for the note. The City has a policy of not buying bottled water, because it does not make sense to waste resources on plastic bottles in an office setting, particularly when Seattle has some of the best water in the country, thanks to the long history of effective public policy that has protected our watersheds and provided a secure and healthy water supply for the entire region.
You should note that sales taxes and other taxes do not differ by any significant amount between Seattle and other Washington areas, as they are largely set by the State Legislature. And, of course, if you buy less groceries, that does not change the sales tax, as food is exempt from sales tax in Washington. And, of course, I assume you understand that ‘free’ bags are not really free, the cost for them is passed on in the price of food. Why should people who are freeloaders and too cheap to bring their own bags want to impose the cost of their bags on the rest of us?
Council President Richard Conlin”
That should read: Council President Richard Conlin, ASSHOLE AT LARGE
I really hate that the grey whale keeps being brought up. Nobody sane would argue that plastic is a great thing to be irresponsibly disposed of so that it ends up in whales. But in those first few weeks of April a total of five dead whales washed up in the region and this one was interesting because it had a good amount of human refuse (plastics too) inside it. I found pages of articles about the whale mentioning plastics before I finally found the report by the group that actually did the necropsy on that “plastics” whale. Turns out the dead whale with the most plastics in it was the healthiest (of the dead whales examined) and despite the implications, it didn’t seem to starve to death due to plastics. 50 gallons of stomach contents, mostly food.
http://www.cascadiaresearch.org/WSeattle…
The 37 foot near-adult male was found to be in better nutritional condition than some of the other gray whales that have died in recent weeks and starvation was not considered a major contributor to the cause of death. The animal had more than 50 gallons of largely undigested stomach contents consisting mostly of algae but also a surprising amount of human debris including more than 20 plastic bags, small towels, surgical gloves, sweat pants, plastic pieces, duct tape, and a golf ball (see full list of items found and photo of all items). The debris while numerous, made up only 1-2% of the stomach contents and there was no clear indication it had caused the death of the animal. It did clearly indicate that the whale had been attempting to feed in industrial waters and therefore exposed to debris and contaminants present on the bottom in these areas.
http://www.cascadiaresearch.org/WSeattle-ER.htm is the link
The real benefactor will be the companies making paper bags (yes, some based in the PNW), despite how each paper bag has a bigger net carbon output than each plastic bag.
http://www.registerguard.com/web/newsloc…
Even in model Portland, where Fred Meyer stores switched over to paper bags a year before their ban began and charge for those bags, after the ban took place the net result was:
“Now, most Fred Meyer customers use paper bags, not reusable bags, Merrill said.”
Wow, a strong pro-plastic lobby on the comments section here. I’m going to point out the obvious here… paper bags are recyclable (if clean) or compostable (if food soiled). With such good yard/food compost programs in Seattle (or Portland) it seems like that helps make this ban work better.
Wah, wah, wah.
The anti-environment concern trolls are concerned.
I’m not a local but in case this idea of a bag ban spreads, I’ll put in my two cents. I really don’t like the idea of a ban because there are people like me who reuse plastic bags. I have a cat and use scoop-able litter, and my daughter still wets the bed so she uses night-time disposable pants for that. I have to bag each pant or clump of kitty litter into a separate bag before putting it into the trash if I don’t want my house to stink all week before trash day. Why not just make recycling an easier option for people who don’t reuse? For example, many neighborhoods have curbside pickup of recyclables except for plastic bags. Why can’t they pick up the bags along with the cans, plastic bottles and the paperboard products? I don’t get it.