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By LORI A. CARTER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Petaluma’s City Council expressed support this week for a possible countywide ordinance regulating disposable carry-out bags, both plastic and paper, to reduce waste, pollution and environmental damage.
Representatives from the county waste management agency are seeking feedback from all Sonoma County cities to determine whether a unified county ordinance would gain support. The agency would fund an analysis of the proposal and defend any legal challenges if all county agencies unanimously support it.
Mendocino County supervisors voted in April to start an environmental impact report in a move toward banning plastic carry-out bags. Marin County, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Monica and Los Angeles County already have plastic bag prohibitions and impose small fees on paper bags.
The fees are intended to encourage consumers to use reusable shopping bags because of the environmental toll plastic and paper bags take on the environment.
Some retailers are preempting the trend, including Wal-Mart, which has discontinued the use of disposable bags at several stores, including the one in Ukiah.
County waste agency representatives told the Petaluma council that a unified county ordinance could be written in several ways, but likely would include a ban on plastic bags given by merchants and a fee on paper bags.
They said bans on plastic only have given rise to legal challenges.
The plastics industry opposes bans and has sued in several jurisdictions. Preparing environmental impact reports, rather than less formal analyses by government agencies, is an effort to ward off such challenges.
A possible county ordinance likely would include just grocery stores, but other jurisdictions have included retail outlets and restaurants. Merchants’ comments would be included in the drafting of any ordinance.
The Sonoma County Waste Management Agency hopes to have enough feedback from cities within the county to take a straw poll on Aug. 17 to determine how to move forward.
The environmental analysis would be funded from the agency’s reserves, representatives told Petaluma council members.
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Hey Sonoma County Waste Management Agency, how about educating the general public on recycleing plastic bags VS denying people the freedome of choice? Don’t you trust people to do the right thing or do you just want to exercise your authority?
Doesn’t anyone else see the lunacy? If you got to a grocery store, one would have to purchase a reuslable bag to carry out one’s purchase, when right next door at (say) a bagel shop you can walk out with a dozen bagels in a plastic bag?
Aren’t these the type of people that brought us the low flush toilets that you have to flush three or four times using more water than the old ones? The same ones that took away the incandescent light bulbs (made in the USA) and make us use a new bulb that contains mercury (made in China)?
Thank you Double Bag It for the article! It just goes to show that some just have an agenda and disregard information that doesn’t fit that agenda because THEY know whats best for the sheeple. How sad :-(
Petaluma Should ban city council.
LOL @ the Smart Rail. Shouldn’t it be called the Sonoma County and Marin (SCAM) Train? There is a wonderful train station in Windsor which will never be used.
Are the people really insane enough to believe that we need a train line? We already have buses, which have replaced the commuter trains in usefulness and efficiency. Train tracks are permanent. When the people all move closer to San Francisco as we become closer to a third world country to where fuel is so expensive that people can not afford to travel or commute, the tracks will still be there. Buses can always change routes to coincide with population trends.
I will support no line except the John Galt Line!
A great report on plastic bags
Plastic Grocery Bags —
Challenges and Opportunities
http://www.fmi.org/docs/media/bg/Plastic_Bag_Backgrounder.pdf
Hey, when you can’t fix the big things bust up the little things. Me, I always ask for a box.
So when do we get serious and require wine bottles to participate Cal. recycling program?
Petaluma has 20 cents in reserve funds and the Chief of Police who threw Cpt. Sears under the bus on cable TV but we need a bag ban alright.
Gov’t in action. Just impose a paper bag tax to force the sheople to comply. I am thankful I don’t live in that PC town. Long live the Peoples Republic of Petaluma. Just wait for the Smart Rail tax, I mean fee, to force you to ride it, or just to pay for it.