Cuyahoga County Council poised to pass countywide plastic bag ban

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cuyahoga County Council is poised to pass a countywide ban on single-use plastic bags after all the members of a council committee on Wednesday voiced support for the ban.

Four members of the Education, Environment, and Sustainability Committee signed on as co-sponsors of the ban during the Wednesday hearing, and Council President Dan Brady told cleveland.com he expects the measure to pass.

Committee Chairwoman Sunny Simon and Councilman Dale Miller are the primary sponsors. Signing on Wednesday were Brady, Council Vice President Pernel Jones Jr., and councilwomen Shontel Brown and Cheryl Stephens, giving the measure the six votes needed for passage.

Contacted Wednesday, a spokeswoman for County Executive Armond Budish could not immediately say whether Budish supports the measure or whether he would sign the ordinance into law.

If signed into law, the ban would go into effect on Oct. 1 to give retailers time to use up their supplies of plastic bags, and allow time for community education.

The last time Council attempted to curtail the use of plastic bags was a 2017 proposal by Simon and Miller that would have added a 10-cent fee per plastic and paper bag. But that measure faced heavy pushback and never made it to out of committee.

Brady on Wednesday said he believed the proposed ban had garnered a “broad consensus.”

Jones and Stephens said they have received calls and emails in support of the ban from both urban and suburban residents of the county.

Simon acknowledged that the ban would be a difficult change for county residents. But she said it was a necessary one, and likened the environment in America to Paris’ fire-damaged cathedral of Notre Dame.

“This is our cathedral,” she said. “Teddy Roosevelt saw this as something as a legacy that we have to preserve. This is our future.”

The ban applies to all single-use plastic bags and paper bags that are not 100 percent recyclable or made from at least 40 percent of recycled material.

The ban would not apply to plastic bags that customers bring with them to retailers, and bags used for carry-out orders of prepared food or restaurant leftovers.

It also would not apply to plastic bags used for newspapers, perishable items such as produce and meat, garbage, dry-cleaning, pet waste, prescription medication and bags provided at curbside pick-up or points of delivery and bags used for legally transporting partially-consumed bottles of wine.

Simon said Wednesday that a marketing campaign will be launched shortly to prepare residents for the change. And the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District is helping secure a grant so reusable bags can be provided to residents throughout the county, Simon said.

The ban would be enforced by the county’s Department of Consumer Affairs. First-time violators would be subject to a written warning. Second violations would carry a civil fine of up to $100 and subsequent violations would carry fines up to $500.Violations are defined as each day a retailer doesn’t comply with the ordinance.

And at this price (less than 3.6 ea.) Inteplast Group "Thank You" Shopper Bags, White, 500 Ct - $17.87 Free 2-day shipping on orders over $35 then many would by if they knew.

However, what you are not likely to be told by the those who want to ban these is info such as,

Because they are so lightweight, plastic bags represent a very small fraction of landfill – less than 1%.

[From Canada] In a properly engineered landfill, nothing is meant to degrade. No bag – reusable or conventional plastic shopping bag – will decompose in landfill. which actually helps the environment by not producing dangerous greenhouse gases like methane...Modern landfills are engineered to entomb waste and prevent decomposition, which creates harmful greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide.

They have very high alternate use rate in Ontario of 59.1% (Ontario MOE (data).

Reusable bags or longer-life bags are not necessarily greener, unless they are reused many times and as frequently as intended. On a life cycle basis, stronger, heavier bags made to last longer, no matter what material they are made from, will have a greater environmental impact because they use more resources in their production.

Plastic shopping bags outperform paper bags environmentally – on manufacturing, on reuse, and on solid waste volume and generation. Study after study shows that conventional plastic bags are better for the environment because they have a much lower carbon footprint than paper bags. Life Cycle Assessments (LCA’s) also show that the manufacture of paper grocery bags has a heavier environmental impact than the manufacture of plastic shopping bags. According to the Scottish Government 2005 Report on Plastic Shopping Bags, the manufacture of paper bags consumes four times more water than the manufacture of plastic bags; paper generates three times more greenhouse gases; and almost three times more solid waste than plastic bags.

A scan of bans around the world shows that bans don’t work. They don’t deliver an environmental benefit, a social benefit, or a jobs benefit. Other reduction strategies are far more effective in reducing the use of conventional plastic shopping bags, particularly when they offer consumers choice and are voluntary.

Polyethylene bags are made out of ethane, a component of natural gas. Ethane is extracted to lower the BTU value of the gas in order to meet pipeline and gas utility specifications and so that the natural gas doesn’t burn too hot when used as fuel in our homes or businesses. The ethane is converted, and its BTU value is “frozen” into a solid form (polyethylene) using a catalytic process to make a plastic shopping bag. - http://www.allaboutbags.ca/myths.html

Many of the plastic bags that are recycled in the U.S. end up as composite lumber, according to the Georgia Recycling Coalition. This is a mix of plastic bags and wood scraps, such as sawdust and old pallets. This type of lumber is long lasting, durable and a low maintenance decking and outdoor construction option.

portion of your recycled bags may end up in the nanotechnology field, according to the PBS NewsHour website. Scientists at the University of Adelaide have developed a new way to recycle those plastic bags and create carbon nanotube membranes, which may potentially be used for energy storage and biomedical innovations. This is one solution for minimizing environmental pollution by creating valuable goods. - https://education.seattlepi.com/happens-plastic-grocery-bags-recycled-4791.html

In a 2018 life-cycle assessment, Denmark’s ministry of environment and food agreed with previous similar studies, finding that classic plastic shopping bags have the least environmental impact. This assessment does not take marine litter into account—so as far as that gigantic problem is concerned, plastics are almost certainly the worst, since they don’t break down on a timescale meaningful to human or animal life.

But when taking into account other factors, like the impact of manufacturing on climate change, ozone depletion, water use, air pollution, and human toxicity, those classic, plastic shopping bags are actually the most benign of the current common options. - https://qz.com/1585027/when-it-comes-to-climate-change-cotton-totes-might-be-worse-than-plastic/

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