As expected, at an April 30 city council meeting, Chicago aldermen voted 36-10 to ban plastic bags at chain and franchise stores. The ban goes into effect for large retailers in August 2015 and one year later for shops smaller than 10,000 square feet. Family-owned stores and restaurants will not be affected.<\/p>\n
All stores will have to provide or sell reusable bags, recyclable paper bags or compostable plastic bags and have the option of charging for the disposable bags.<\/p>\n
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been supportive of the ban once small, family-owned businesses were exempted, as part of his larger plans to improve Chicago\u2019s waste management and recycling systems.<\/p>\n
Alderman Proco \u201cJoe\u201d Moreno spent more than two years spearheading the anti-bag effort in Chicago and has called single-use plastic bags \u201ca relic of yesterday\u2019s economy,\u201d insisting that no jobs or business will be lost because of the ban.<\/p>\n
The American Progressive Bag Alliance (APBA) disagrees, pointing out that the U.S. plastic bag manufacturing and recycling business employs 30,800 across the country, including 3,000 in Illinois.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe City Council\u2019s decision to pass a partial ban on multi-use, recyclable plastic bags is misinformed and directly contradicts Chicago\u2019s economic development efforts, essentially creating a new tax for shoppers,\u201d said APBA Executive Director Lee Califf. \u201cAld. Joe Moreno, who authored the ban, admitted today in his Chicago Tribune op-ed that cost to consumer was left out of the equation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf retailers want to pass the cost on to consumers, they are welcome to do so,\u201d he wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his Tribune opinion piece, Moreno also called the final version of the ordinance imperfect and \u201ca noble compromise, which gives us 90 percent of what we set out to achieve,\u201d because it does not include a fee.<\/p>\n
Environmentalist and executive director of Bring Your Bag Chicago, Jean Jordan, lambasted the bag ordinance in her own Tribune op-ed the day before the vote, saying that without a fee, the effort \u201cmasquerades as a piece of environmental legislation\u201d that will not help stop litter or lower cleanup costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem with the absence of a fee is that consumers aren\u2019t encouraged to change their behavior: They will choose the \u2018free\u2019 bag, while retailers embed the costs of those bags in their product prices. A small fee is not punitive. It\u2019s an educational tool that triggers consumer awareness of disposable bag waste,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
Jordan also noted truths the plastics industry already knows: that paper bags have a higher carbon dioxide footprint than plastic ones and compostable bags \u201care the worst of both worlds\u201d if they don\u2019t actually make it to a proper industrial composting facility.<\/p>\n
For plastics industry groups, for whom concern about manufacturing jobs continue to mount as bag ban ordinances pile up around the country, the answer is simple: recycling programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cComprehensive plastic bag recycling education would have been the better option for Chicago\u2019s environment and would have preserved consumers\u2019 freedom of choice. We are exploring all options to reverse this terrible decision,\u201d APBA\u2019s Califf said in an April 30 news release.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is extremely unfortunate that the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance that could destroy plastics manufacturing jobs in Chicago and other areas across the country that recycle these valuable products,\u201d said SPI President and CEO William Carteaux.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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