Facts, figures, opinions delay SLT’s plastic bag ban decision
By Kathryn Reed
Enough information about the merits and hazards of banning plastic bags was disseminated Wednesday that the commission tasked with making a recommendation to the South Lake Tahoe City Council deferred its decision for a month.
“The goal is to reduce and eventually eliminate one-time use plastic bags,” Chairwoman Kirstin Cattell said at the beginning of the meeting.
Assistant City Attorney Jacqueline Mittelstadt told the 40 people gathered at the city offices at Lake Tahoe Airport that a court ruling came down last week calling the prohibition of plastic bags in one city illegal because adequate environmental reports were not done.
Promoting reusable bags in South Lake Tahoe.
Mittelstadt also enlightened everyone that in 2007 the state Legislature ruled cities couldn’t impose a fee to use plastic bags. However, the state can. But two bills relating to that matter have died.
At the end of the meeting Cattell said she wants more details on the legalities of the issue before making up her mind.
Some of the people who spoke said waiting for the state to implement a fee is the right course.
Ellen Camacho spoke out in favor of a ban on plastic bags.
“We need to make it hurt to use plastic bags,” she told the commissioners.
Ellen Nunes, who runs Clean Tahoe, rattled off a slew of statistics about the billions of plastic bags produced in the world each year. She said this as slides of trash scattered about Tahoe — in marshes, the street and meadows — filled the screen.
She said Clean Tahoe picked up 108 tons of trash in 2009 — that’s just in South Lake Tahoe — and has nothing to do with normal trash service. How much of that was plastic bags she didn’t know.
Nunes said her crews have found plastic particles in animal scat.
Environmentally, that’s one of the arguments to ban the bags — that they get loose and animals ingest the toxins. Also, as the bags slowly decompose they leach chemicals into the soil and waterways. It takes hundreds of years for ordinary plastic bags to decompose.
But Ryan Kenny with the American Chemistry Council said environmentally plastic bags are better than paper when it comes to the production process. Kenny said plastic produces less emissions, use less water, less energy and more can be transported at once compared to paper bags.
Mike Murphy, who owns Road Runner gas station, said he would need a warehouse to store paper bags, whereas plastic are so compact.
He said a big issue is with tourists who don’t know what to do with their trash and who don’t believe a garbage company sorts recyclables by hand, like South Tahoe Refuse does.
Jeff Tillman of the refuse company said about 45 percent of what comes on the conveyer belt is pulled off to recycle. That number is expected to jump when the new facility opens this spring.
Education was a big theme of the discussion.
It was noted that consumers don’t recycle their plastic bags at grocery stores. Mike Schouten, owner of the local Grocery Outlet, said he estimates about 1 percent of the bags are recycled. They offer plastic bags and have reusable canvas bags for sale.
Schouten said he believes customers are speaking — they want the convenience of the plastic bags. He says this because only about 10 customers a day come in with reusable bags.
But that gets back to the education component — to make the public aware of what it takes to create plastic and paper bags, and what happens to those bags at the end of their life. And plastic bags are said to average 12 minutes of use before becoming trash.
Sustainability Commissioner Do Lee said he would like a cost analysis regarding how a ban would affect small and large businesses. He also wants to now the financial impact to customers before he decides how to vote.
Former Mayor Margo Osti is adamantly in support of banning plastic bags. She said the commission needs to work with Clean Tahoe, tell the council to have a dedicated code enforcement officer for trash related issues and should seek grants that could possibly provide reusable bags to everyone in the city for free.
Others who spoke questioned the logic in having South Tahoe ban the bags at stores when tourists come here with bags and so many locals shop off the hill where plastic bags are the norm.
Minutes before the meeting, Lake Tahoe News received a phone call from Jim Coalwell, who runs the farmers market in South Tahoe each summer. He said his organization is willing to cooperate with whatever decision is made, but hopes any change would be phased in.
Some of the discussion centered on getting rid of Styrofoam as well.
Jeremy Bauer, purchasing manager for Sierra-at-Tahoe, said all of the products at the resort are recyclable, with many made from corn resin.
“Our consumers have told us they appreciate that,” Bauer said.
David Hansen, director of engineering for Embassy Suites South Lake Tahoe, said he agreed with just about everything that had been said that afternoon, recognizing there are trade-offs with every decision.
Embassy doesn’t use plastic or Styrofoam. With its composting program and recycling efforts, in 2009 STR picked up 45 percent less waste at the hotel.
Speaking on behalf of the Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce, Hansen said, “We support your decision if it makes economic and environmental sense.”
The Sustainability Commission is expected to make a recommendation at its March 3 4pm meeting.
do we not have more important issues in this town than plastic bags?
I’m curious as to what type of bag Clean Tahoe intends to stuff the plastic bags they pick up??
I remember very clearly the time when the same hand wringers were so sure that paper bags were decimating the forests.
I’m afraid I have to agree with Mr. Dewitt’s assessment, during these times, what a thing to worry about.
Wow this is a really good example of why our City is asleep at the wheel. A very good example of why we need less government.
I attended the meeting last night and it was quite informative. What I did come away with though is that SLT has a trash problem. The type of trash is being blamed when it is the people that need to secure their trash and prevent it from spreading around Tahoe.
And trash is an important issue.
I agree with Jennifer — that the public must be educated to not leave their JUNK, including plastic bags, behind. Look around you. Pride is a mind-set. Some people will never “get it”. We reuse plastic bags to line waste baskets at home, and DO deposit our plastic bags in grocery store bins. If everyone became conscious of keeping our fair world tidy, wouldn’t it be a more beautiful place to live?
Man on the moon,space walks, man made satellite’s,space stations, stealth fighter planes, drone bombers,computers,TV, cell phones, six billion in nobid contracts for Halliburton,Bush TARP bailout. The beat goes on and on, without a brainiac design for a biodegradable solution for plastic bags.As Don Rumsfeld might say “Oh my goodness gracious is that not something we can do”
http://www.angelfire.com/wi/PaperVsPlastic/
Educate yourself !
I separate my trash,use the green bags,pick up my street from others that don’t care.
I also help the clean Tahoe man with the big white hat, load heavy furniture, people leave on our street in the night.
If everyone who clams to care would do just a little it would add up to a Cleaner Tahoe.
Simple.
Trash is a huge problem in Tahoe, and those of you who wish to discount it have your heads in the sand. And this includes plastic bags. Education is great, but everyone knows what they are supposed to do with their trash already. Many just don’t care. People wake up and respond when it costs them money, as in fines and citation. We need strict enforcement that includes large fines for a first offense. None of this “bad boy don’t do it again”, slap on the wrist stuff. You litter you pay. And this should include STR. Have you ever looked around your neighborhood on trash collection day? There is always trash left in the street by the collection guys. And what can you expect when they use that big open top bin? We currently have very lax enforcement of trash rules, if there are any. When I call to complain of trash spread across a vacation rental property, the common answer is ” we will send out clean tahoe”. Great, they do a good job of cleaning up the mess, but there is no fine to the homeowner so it happens again and again. Take money from peoples pockets and they wake up!! Strict rules and strong enforcement and we could probably still use the plastic bags.
If an environmental impact study were to be done, it would conclude that paper is worse for the environment than plastic. If trash is the issue, then why doesn’t the Commission call it for what it is? Ban plastic bags because of litter. Don’t disguise the issue as a sustainability issue as science shows it is not. Banning plastic bags is green washing. Green washing gives the sustainability movement a bad name.
http://www.angelfire.com/wi/PaperVsPlastic/
Sorry folks but there is one more thing that was interesting about last nights Forum. There was talk of banning styrofoam. It should be banned. But what I didn’t like is the talk of using compostable products without having a composting plan in place. This is another instance in my opinion of green washing. If a business is buying compostable products and then sending them to a landfill they are wasting their money and are not completing the full circle. I have never seen compost come from a landfill. Compostable products have to be sent to a commercial composting facility in order to be turned into a nutrient rich soil ammendment called COMPOST.There was no talk from the invited EXPERTS regarding a composting program. Purchasing compostable products and then putting them in a landfill is another example of green washing as the public thinks, wow they are composting, when actually they are not.
In regards to STR and their trash pickup procedure. Steven is correct, on trash collection day STR personnel lose a signifigant amount of trash emptying can and filling thier truck. Additionally, take a drive down James beind their collection facility-its filthy.
William McDonough, the “mastermind of sustainable development”, auuthor of Cradle-to-Cradle, always includes in his talks around the globe the rhetorical question “We live in a throwaway society . . .where exactly is “away”.
From this thought,he created the concept of eliminating waste entirely – as nature finds a way to recycle most everything, while man simply disposes it.
My comments at this forumw were geared for perspective, as he has also said that we do not have enough raw natural materials left to work with (cotton, cork, wool, etc.), so we will end up needing some man-made materials to feed the demand our culture creates economically.
The key is in knowing what is actually toxic and what isn’t, and we already know what petroleum byproducts do the human endocrine syatem. The chemical industry has not yet awakened to the above necessity, and plastic bags are ubiquitous primarily because they’re a cheap throwaway item, and their market responds to that – as a commodity that has more cost in its’ use (‘disposable’)than in it’s original purchase.
This is precisely what the Story of Stuff talks about: things that cost little to nothing at checkout have a huge cost to the world around us out the door.
This is why the sbtitle of Cradle to Cradle is “Remaking the Way We Make Things”, as we can no longer afford to take even the lowly plastic grocery bag for granted and look the other way. The number of just grocery bags alone is 800,000,000,000 (with a B) which is almost 150 per year per person for every man, woman, and child on the planet.
Again,where is “away” ?
Gary, I don’t think the commission is thinking about long term impacts or society in general. I doubt very seriously they could decipher your comments.
You know what’s really ironic ,have you ever tried to go buy a 39 gallon trash can lid at the local hardware stores here.
Recently I went to all the store in search of a lid,there was not one who had one.
I think the refuse or the Clean Tahoe could make a honest Buck by having a inventory of different can lids.
All the Hardware stores wanted me to buy a whole new can,come on business owners, get real about trash.