If passed, the fee would go into effect next July.
Council members Sunny Simon and Dale Miller are introducing the legislation. It’s expected to be read aloud during tomorrow’s council meeting and referred to a committee for later debate.
Here’s the gist: The fee would be tacked onto a customer’s total costs, with $.10 being added for every plastic bag used. (SNAP recipients would not be subjected to the fee.)
The business would keep “up to” four cents from each $.10 fee, with the rest going to the county’s Environmental Remediation Fund, which would be formed as part of this legislation. On the 20th of every month, the business would remit to the county all total revenue from the plastic bag fee (minus the potential 40-percent administrative costs).
The Environmental Remediation Fund would later be tapped for recycling efforts, river clean-ups, pollution prevention, litter removal and other sustainably minded public services. The county would be permitted to audit the business’ plastic bag records at any time.
All along, businesses both local and conglomerate would be expected to encourage customers to bring reusable totes or their own plastic bags to the store.
If this ordinance were to pass, Cuyahoga County would join the cities of Seattle and Portland (and others) in a growing trend toward banning the use of plastic bags. California voters approved Prop. 67 last year, ending a fairly controversial political scratch that saw much debate. In developing countries, the trend toward all-out bans in even more pronounced.
The Natural Resources Defense Council posits that the average American family carts home 1,500 plastic bags each year, with most ending up in yet another plastic trash bag.
And while plastic bag use continues to rise, it’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time Simon has proposed such a ban in Cuyahoga County. Five years ago, shortly after the council was formed, she worked alongside City Councilman Matt Zone to push this sort of policy. The idea got lost in legal gray areas (council’s power was still being sussed out, especially with respect to the county’s unincorporated townships).
The debate ahead, which will certainly include local grocers like Dave’s and Marc’s, will be an interesting one to watch.
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 3, 2017.
Good. People can save by using their own bags, and we’ll get a fund to relieve some of our filthy air. Better than taxing our income like they always want to do.
Another dickhead idea. Illinois is getting rid of the plastic bottle deposit fee because it was immensely unpopular. But of course the morons in Cleveland want a bag fee.
All the poor that have to walk and take public transportation will curse the fee as they try to walk home with paper bags. Oh and theyll love paying for plastic bags to throw garbage in.
The debate will not be interesting. Just another idea by a pinhead to make themselves feel like they have s purpose in life.
just another tax on the poor imposed by politicians
My cats are pissed off about this idea, and so am I. Try putting recycled kitty by-products into a paper bag.
Chuckles the Clown
Good. D.C. implemented a bag fee when I lived there, & it’s still going strong, paying for river cleanup & other environmental efforts. I’d like to see the same happen here. Don’t want to pay it? Easy: Bring your own bags.
The fee will be 5 cents not 10 cents. The stores must be 1600 square feet or more.
I regularly see the bags blowing out of automated trash pickup trucks while they are emptying the carts. These have been littering our water and land for years. I lead monthly waterway cleanups during the summer in Bay Village and plastic bags are a significant part of the plastic problem ending up in our waterways, and ultimately, our drinking water. The decisions made at the checkout can have long term effects on the health of you and your neighbors. There are recent scientific studies showing the growing problem in the great lakes. See https://www.usgs.gov/news/widespread-plastic-pollution-found-great-lakes-tributaries This is a good step to begin reducing wasteful practices that hurt public health. Notice that this is not banning bags, just placing a small fee on them to discourage. The true cost of plastic bag pollution is likely much higher than the negligible fee will ever collect from those who refuse to carry a reusable bag.
Awesome idea, I am so glad to see Cleveland stepping up when it comes to innovative environmental policy that just makes sense!
That’s fine if every store allows me to bag my own items. When I do self-checkout, I use as few bags as possible. But when clerks do it, they love to double bag things, separate food and non-food items (even if they’re both in cardboard boxes), and I end up with 15 plastic bags for something I could’ve fit into 5. Another question is, will Aldi be exempt, or will they have to raise the prices for their bags?
My sister lives in San Francisco, has for 50 years. She hates the bag ban!
But karma is biting SF in the butt.
Apparently their homeless folks are leaving their excrement on the streets because they don’t have plastic bags to put their poop in.
This resulting assault to public sanitation is leading to a resurgance of Hepatitis A.
My husband and I use reuseable totes (when we remember to bring them in the store), so I guess I wouldn’t mind a fee, if the money is actually going to be used for good and not just go in the pockets of the powers that be. Also, where am I going to put the dog poop when I walk my dogs, or when we have to clean up the yard 2-3 x’s per week? I don’t remember how we did it before the plastic bags were around. Hmmm. I have to think on that. Did we use the brown paper bags? I honestly don’t remember.
Renee, use bread bags or newspaper delivery bags for dog poop.
This won’t go into effect til next July. Don’t want to pay? Either save the bags you get now or buy reusable bags. This is a great idea. Forget to bring your bags into the store? Have them load them unbagged into your cart and bag them in the parking lot. My boyfriend and I have kept bind and milk crates in the trunk and just loaded groceries into those to bring upstairs. Laundry baskets work too.
I live within sight of Walmart and Target in North Olmsted…these bags lie in the ditch, get stuck in trees, and clog up storm sewers. PLEASE enact a tax on these things! I will happily avoid it! We are already pretty much in the habit of shopping with reusable bags simply because we got tired of being overrun by them in the house.