Breaking Down Evanston’s Proposed Disposable Shopping Bag Ban

may be divisive, but it is far from original. During the past several years, a handful of communities have passed legislation taxing or prohibiting the use of such bags, and in these places, similar debates arose over potential economic repercussions, the legitimacy of environmental concerns and the feasibility of altering people’s long-held habits. In success or failure, these precedents have provided Evanston with models to examine and plenty of information as ammo for whatever dispute is on the horizon.

An Overview of Precedents

Washington D.C.:

On Jan. 1, 2010, a D.C. law went into effect that banned the use of disposable, non-recyclable plastic bags and imposed a 5-cent per bag tax on the use of recyclable paper and plastic shopping bags. One year later, the city has seen a 78 percent decrease in the use of such bags, and has collected near $2 million in related tax revenue, all of which has gone towards cleaning the Anacostia River.

Seattle:

The Seattle City Council passed a law in July 2008 that would have levied a 20-cent per bag tax on all disposable shopping bags and even announced plans to provide all households with at least one reusable shopping bag to ease the transition. But opponents gathered enough signatures to turn the ban into a referendum, which was ultimately voted down during the next eligible city election. In the months leading up to the vote, plastic bag makers launched a significant campaign against the proposal, reportedly outspending ban proponents by a measure of 15-to-1.

California:

In September 2010, California lawmakers voted against a statewide ban on single-use plastic shopping bags, many ascribing their opposition to the potential financial burdens they thought the ban might place on consumers and retailers. Under the proposed law, customers would have still been allowed to purchase recyclable paper bags at grocery stores for 4 to 6 cents. Before the vote, the American Chemistry Council, a plastics trade association and government lobbyist group vehemently opposed to any ban on plastics, created an ad campaign entitled “Stop the Bag Police.” The group took out TV and radio spots, and launched a website, all pushing the viewpoint that “lawmakers should be working on [California’s] real problems” by addressing the state’s budget deficit and high unemployment rates. Still, California cities like San Francisco, Palo Alto, Fairfax and Malibu have all passed disposable shopping bag bans.

China:

In January 2008, China banned shops from giving out free plastic shopping bags in an effort to reduce pollution, encouraging consumers to use baskets or cloth sacks instead. The move saved China an estimated 40 billion plastic bags the following year, according to the China Chain Store and Franchise Association, an amount equivalent to 1.6 million metric tons of oil.

Financial Impact:

Consumers have demonstrated that they are willing to adjust their habits in the face of a ban or tax on single-use shopping bags, often switching to carrying store-bought goods in some form of reusable tote. But some worry that such alterations could also spell bad news for local businesses.

A Jan. 2011 study released by The Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University, a Boston-based research center specializing in public economics and tax analysis, evaluated the economic impact of Washington, D.C.’s 5-cent bag tax and concluded that the local economy would take a small hit from the levy.

The study, which was commissioned by Americans for Tax Reform, a D.C.-based nonprofit special interest group opposing all tax increases, found that “all other things being equal, consumers will allocate a portion of their spending to the Bag Tax or divert spending outside D.C. to avoid the tax” and that “both will reduce consumption spending in D.C.”

In total, researchers estimated that the tax would eliminate 101 local jobs, cause annual wages to fall by $18 per worker and lower aggregate real disposable income by $5.64 million.

Paul Dachman, director of research at the Beacon Hill Institute, said the numbers “weren’t eye-popping” in terms of the total D.C. economy, adding “you could say it’s a drop in the bucket, unless it’s one of your jobs [being cut].”

Dachman said that an outright ban of single-use bags would yield different results, since it would not take money directly from the private sector, but also said he could envision such a restriction still having some negative effect on businesses operating near city limits.

However, in a recent report generated by the City of Evanston’s office of sustainability, city officials argued that a ban might save Evanston residents an average of $17.14 annually by eliminating hidden disposable bag costs that retailers pass on to consumers. They also suggested residents could use these savings to purchase reusable shopping bags.

Todd Ruppenthal, owner of Happy Husky Bakery and president of the Central Street Business Association, said he could foresee customers buying fewer items if they were unable to fit all their desired purchases in their reusable sack.

But a Feb. 2011 survey commissioned by the Alice Ferguson Foundation, a Maryland-based nonprofit environmental advocacy organization, found that 58 percent of D.C. business owners said they had seen no changes to their business, with 20 percent responding that the tax had a positive effect. An additional 12 percent said the tax had affected their business negatively.

Paper vs. Plastic:

One of the big debates that has occurred within other communities that have elected to ban or tax disposable shopping bags is: which is more eco-friendly (or less harmful), paper or plastic bags?

The answer is not simple, partially because much of the readily available information on the subject comes from the American Chemistry Council, a plastics trade association and government lobbyist group vehemently opposed to any ban on plastics. However, it seems generally agreed that paper bags are more harmful to the environment before they hit consumer’s hands, while plastic bags are more damaging after they are used.

Paper bags are made from wood pulp, which comes from lumber, while plastic bags are made from polyethylene, a polymer extracted in refining crude oil.

Paper bags require more energy during manufacturing and transport (40 to 300 percent more, depending on the source of information), partially because they weigh more than plastic ones, and hence require more fuel to move. According to several sources, manufacturing a paper bag also creates significantly more air pollutants (near 70 percent more) and water pollution (near 50 times more) than making a plastic equivalent.

However, according to a 2009 Illinois Commodity/Waste Generation Study, Illinois residents recycle 37.8 percent of paper shopping bags and uncoated cardboard (grouped together in the report) as opposed to only 1.5 percent of plastic shopping bags. In fact, paper shopping bags often contain 40 to 60 percent post-consumer content, while plastic bags made from recycled materials are much rarer.

Though paper bag recycling is more common, it comes at a cost. Recycling a paper bag requires roughly 85 times more energy than the process for recycling a plastic one, according to Evanston’s recent office of sustainability report.

Plastic bags, on the other hand, tend to end up in landfills and sometimes in water sources.  A 2006 Greenpeace report entitled “Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans” found that 267 marine species are known to have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of plastic debris.

Reusable Shopping Bags:

The City of Evanston is advocating for the increased use of reusable shopping bags as a way to eliminate the need for retailers to hand out disposable bags. Evanston officials have even suggested that the City might “provide bags to income qualified households or…partner with businesses to offset the cost of the bags through advertisement.”

Several of Evanston’s larger chain stores already offer reusable bags, made available for purchase at checkout. Dominick’s sells two sizes of such totes ($2 and $3) and Whole Foods offers several options, from a 99-cent bag with a lifetime wear-and-tear warranty to a large $10 insulated version.

In addition to popular canvas bags and reusable satchels made from 100 percent recyclable material, more recently several companies have taken to making small compactable bags, many weighing less than two ounces, capable of holding near 25 pounds and potentially small enough to fit in a purse or pocket, intended to make it reasonable to carry one at all times.

But recent studies have pointed to some reusable bag drawbacks.

A June 2010 University of Arizona study found that the reuse of grocery bags present an opportunity for cross contamination of foods and, if unwashed, can play host to bacteria growth. Of 84 reusable bags randomly collected from shoppers in Tucson, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, researchers found harmful bacteria in nearly half and E. coli bacteria in 12 percent.

While most reusable totes are machine washable, 97 percent of people surveyed during the study admitted to never cleaning their bags.

Another study, released in Nov. 2010 by independent contract laboratory TEI Analytical, Inc., found near half of reusable shopping bags made with Non-Woven Poly Propylene contain unsafe levels of lead, raising both environmental and health concerns.

The results sent reusable bag manufacturers scrambling to test their own bags, with several companies posting guarantees soon after assuring customers that their bags were not part of the study and had passed independent tests for harmful chemicals.