Baltimore City Council members who had been pressing to ban or levy a fee on disposable merchandise bags appear ready to embrace a more limited voluntary campaign instead to reduce the plastic sacks that frequently wind up as litter in trees, streams and the harbor.
A bill that would have banned plastic bags from being given out at groceries and other stores in the city has been recast as a "plastic bag reduction" ordinance. The council's Judiciary and Legislative Investigations Committee is scheduled to take up the new measure this morning, and chairman James B. Kraft said in an email he hopes to have it approved by the panel and sent to the full council for its consideration. (Update, the committee approved the bill. Read more here.)
The new bill would forbid food retailers only from giving out plastic bags at checkout unless they join a citywide public education campaign to get shoppers to switch to reusable bags or recycle the disposable ones. Participating merchants would have to post signs prominently saying they give out plastic bags on request only. They would also have to collect them for recycling and offer reusable bags for sale as an option.
Kraft originally had proposed a broader ban on all merchants giving out disposable bags at checkout. But he decided at a committee work session a couple weeks ago to abandon it in favor of a voluntary effort to reduce bag litter. Proposals to ban or impose fees on disposable bags faced determined opposition from retailers and bag manufacturers, as well as from Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
Councilman Bill Henry, who had pushed an alternate bill to levy a 25-cent fee on disposable checkout bags, said he's dropping it now in favor of the voluntary measure, which he helped craft, though he's still skeptical about its success at curbing litter.
"I think this is probably the best compromise we're going to work out for the short term," Henry said. The information retailers would be required to report to the city under Kraft's bill should show whether voluntary measures are reducing disposable bag use. The new measure would require retailers to report semi-annually on how many plastic bags they've given out, how many taken back in for recycling, and how many shoppers go for reusable bags instead.
"Either we will be happily surprised that there's less trash than we thought we had," he said, "or we will be able to show to the more skeptical among us that voluntary measures don't work." In that case, Henry said, he would hope to win more support for his belief that the only way effective way to get people to change their shopping-bag habits is to make them "plunk down some actual, cold hard cash" for a disposable sack at checkout.