11/18/10
The Arcata City Council voted at its Wednesday meeting to offer to work collaboratively with the Humboldt Waste Management Authority to create an environmental impact report for a ban of single-use plastic bags. To implement such a ban, the city would need to prepare the report, unless a decision in the currently pending California Supreme Court case Save the Plastic Bag Coalition v. Manhattan Beach determines otherwise, said City Attorney Nancy Diamond. Other communities are moving forward with the bans. Los Angeles County passed its ban on plastic bags and implemented a fee on paper bags Tuesday. It will go into effect in about a month. Completing an environmental impact report would also identify the real impacts paper and plastic bags have and what, if any, alternatives could be used instead of a ban. Councilman Michael Winkler requested that if they were going to ban single-use plastic bags received at grocery and retail stores during check-out that they also move to ban single-use produce bags. Many council members and city staff had been waiting to see what happened with Assembly Bill 1998 that would have banned plastic bags statewide, but it was not approved. Jim Test of Humboldt Waste Management Authority said it will likely be even harder for the plastics industry, which lobbied against the bill, to deal with different ordinances for every municipality since the state ban failed. ”It will be a lot of fun tweaking the plastic industry's nose,” Test said. Councilman Shane Brinton and others were interested in working at the county level to promote the action to happen in a broader area than just Arcata, even if the end product might not be as stringent as one based solely in the city. He put in his motion that if the county agency did not express interest in working with Arcata on the ban by the end of February, the council would move forward with it on its own.
