No bag ban in Suffolk

A majority of the Suffolk County Legislature last week followed the path of New York City in approving a measure imposing a 5-cent charge by retailers for a single-use plastic or paper bag . The county chose the 5-cent option rather than following several Suffolk towns and villages that have passed laws flatly banning single-use plastic bags.

Originally, Legislator William Spencer (D-Centerport) introduced a measure similar to laws enacted by the towns of East Hampton and Southampton and the villages of Patchogue, Sag Harbor, Southampton, East Hampton, Sagaponack and Quogue banning the single-use plastic bags. These municipalities joined governments around the country and the world enacting similar legislation.

On Shelter Island, a poll earlier this year showed Islanders are strongly in favor, by a four-to-one margin, of a regional ban on single-use plastic bags. The poll was conducted by Shelter Island’s Green Options Advisory Committee.
Legislator Spencer’s original measure for a complete ban met with stiff opposition from various business interests including the plastics industry, the same result when earlier proposed laws in Suffolk sought prohibitions on the bags.

At a hearing on his bill in June, business interests urged the legislator to alter his bill to make it similar to one passed the month before in New York City setting a 5-cent charge on a single-use plastic or paper bags. “I ask you to take a second look at the New York City bill,” testified Jon Greenfield, co-owner of a ShopRite store in Commack and others in Nassau County.

A medical doctor as well as a legislator, Dr. Spencer responded that he was concerned that such a fee would result in those who could afford to simply pay for the bags and, “It creates almost a class system.”

But, subsequently, he agreed to change his bill to one like the New York City law which was originally to take effect next month but is now slated to be operational in February.

Dr. Spencer said last week: “The goal of the policy is to reduce bag waste by incentivizing consumers to avoid the fee” and bring their own bags. He heralded his measure as “historic.” County Executive Steve Bellone intends to sign it and the legislation would take effect in January 2018, unlike Dr. Spencer’s earlier bill that would have become operational a year after its passage was recorded with the New York Secretary of State.

The new bill also provides that “if this approach fails to reduce the use of plastic bags by at least 75 percent in three years, the idea of an outright ban can be revisited at a later date.”

Several legislators were opposed to the measure. Legislator Sarah Anker (D-Mount Sinai), regarded as a strong environmentalist on the panel, said that senior citizens she has heard from are especially against the  5-cent charge. Like Dr. Spencer and Mr. Bellone, Ms. Anker is a Democrat. She voted against the bill along with fellow Democrat Lou D’Amaro of North Babylon and Republicans Leslie Kennedy of Nesconset and Robert Trotta of Fort Salonga. Voting for it were 13 legislators.

Much of the body of the new Spencer measure remains the same as the original. It still includes the statements that “between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year” and that “plastic bags account for over 10 percent of debris that washes up on our nation’s coastline.” It still declares: “This Legislature also finds that plastic bags can have a devastating effect on wildlife, birds can become entangled in the bags and different species of sea life can die from ingesting plastic bags that they mistake for food.”

It also still rebuts the rosy industry claim of plastic bags being recycled: “This Legislature finds that only 5 to 7 percent of plastic bags are recycled, in part, due to the fact that it costs more to recycle a bag than to produce a new one.”

The major changes are the elimination of a ban, the addition of the five-cent charge, and linking paper takeaway bags to single-use plastic bags. The latter is something the plastics industry has been pushing nationally.

The new bill also says that it “will not impair or supersede any ordinance, resolution or local law enacted by a village or town within the County of Suffolk” on takeaway bags.

These towns and villages stood strong against the interests that opposed a ban on single-use plastic bags. Summing up, the Suffolk Legislature majority, with the expected backing of the county executive, have decided on a compromise. Will the compromise work? If it doesn’t, will, as the measure says, “the idea of an outright ban” be “revisited at a later date?”

An outright ban on single-use plastic bags is truly what is needed, whether industry interests likes it or not, but its power has been shown to be huge here and elsewhere on the single-use plastic bag issue.

The 5-cent charge, not too incidentally, is to be kept by the retailers.