Jersey City kicks off campaign to get rid of plastic grocery bags

May 22, 2012, 7:04 PM
By Matthew McNab/The Jersey Journal

Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy announced the start of the Waste Free JC campaign today, scheduling a Wednesday morning press conference to kick off his educational conservation campaign.

Healy will speak a 10:30 a.m. press conference at Alexander D. Sullivan Elementary School on Seaview Avenue, marking the start of Waste Free JC, Healy's education campaign promoting the reduction and recycling of plastic bags in the city. The campaign is the latest part of Healy's 365 Days of Green, his initiative to make the city greener and more sustainable.

The city previously proposed a ban on plastic bags in 2010, but it was shot down by residents and local business owners. Out of the failed ban came Waste Free JC and its education campaign, which hopes to reduce plastic bags in similar numbers to the proposed ban.

Chains with local stores, like A&P and Extra Supermarket, have already agreed to participate in the campaign. Both of those stores will allow residents to return plastics to those stores and will display a sticker bearing the campaign's logo in the storefront windows.

Healy's press release also announced Bag the Habit, a local reusable bag company, and the Jersey City Incinerator Authority would collaborate to create paintable canvas bags to use in place of the plastic ones. The Incinerator Authority donated painting supplies and bags to paint to third grade classes at Sullivan Elementary School in Bag the Habit's "We Create the Future" art campaign

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... ounces_waste_free_jc.html

Seems spiteful and bone-headed dtjcview. You would rather deal with more traffic and pay more in gas then simply getting some cheap, reusable shopping bags? They compress down to the size of a lemon and weigh nothing.

I support this thingy here. Not so much because I think it will save the planet, but because plastic bags are disgusting trash that just end up all over the streets, or used once and then thrown away. Might as well just use a canvas bag. They're stronger, durable, re-usable, and you get discounts at grocery stores.

PS: I'd also add.....

If I can't pack my groceries into plastic bags in JC, I'll just shop in Bayonne or Hoboken if the store doesn't give me a reasonable packing alternative. I have a car. Most shoppers also have cars. Give me the choice. Happy to pay a few cents per bag. Not going to lug my own if can pay a few cents extra to go to Hoboken or Bayonne.

Get it? A unilateral City declaration will just drive business elsewhere. Push for it at a state level and it might have some real teeth.

I'm posting this, not because I believe it, but because it's worth looking at both sides of the discussion. Are we "feeling good about ourselves" and not "making a real environmental impact". Dunno.

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http://www.apmbags.com/bagmyths



Plastic Bag Myths
Plastic bags are being demonized across the world these days, but most of the statistics given to justify bag bans and taxes are either misleading or just plain wrong. Below are some of the more popular myths about plastic bags, as well as some interesting facts.

Oil Consumption

MYTH: According to many websites and environmental groups, plastic bag manufacturing uses a large percentage of the crude oil that is consumed in the US. Some suggest that eliminating plastic bags would reduce our dependence on oil.

TRUTH: Plastic bags, and all plastics for that matter, are made from byproducts created by refining petroleum products. The raw material for most plastic bags made in the US is actually natural gas. Less than 3% of all oil ends up being converted into plastic - ALL plastic - from car bumpers, to computer parts, to bags and packaging. The VAST majority of oil is refined into fuel.

The equivalent of approximately 12 million barrels of oil goes into the annual US supply of plastic bags. This sounds like a huge number until you compare it to the 20 million barrels used every day in the US, mustly as fuel for transportation and industry. Bag manufacturing is a fraction of 1% of US oil comsumption. The average US per capita bag use is about 500 bags a year ? the oil equivalent of about half a gallon of gas.

Banning or taxing plastic bags will do nothing to curb oil consumption.

Single Use

MYTH: Most proposed bag bans and taxes use statistics based on an assumption that plastic bags are only used once.

TRUTH: Studies have shown that 80-90% of the population reuse plastic grocery bags at least once. As trash bin liners, for picking up after pets, as lunch sacks, holding wet laundry, etc. Plastic bags are also very easy to recycle, and most grocery stores provide bag recycling bins.

Ireland's Bag Tax

MYTH: Ireland's 2002 tax on plastic grocery bags reduced plastic bag use by 90%.

TRUTH: This is partially true, but doesn't tell the whole story. Use of plastic grocery checkout bags declined, but sales of packaged plastic bags went up by about 400%, resulting in a net gain in plastic bags going to landfills. This shows that most people were reusing their plastic grocery bags for tasks where plastic bags are the best solution - trash can liners, picking up after the dog, wet garbage, etc.

San Francisco Bag Ban

MYTH: In 2008, San Francisco banned plastic bags, which resulted in a huge drop in bag use, and an increase in reusable bags.

TRUTH: Yes, since plastic bags were banned, stores stopped using them. But there was not a huge shift towards reusable bags. Instead, there was a huge increase in paper bag consumption. According to all studies, paper bags are responsible for many times the pollution and oil consumption than plastic bags. Paper is heavier, and not as durable, as plastic and requires far more resources to create, and creates much more air and water pollution. In addition to this, the San Fran Ban also practically eliminated bag recycling programs in the city, and after one year, plastic bag litter (the main reason for the ban) had actually increased.

Recycling

MYTH: Recycling plastic bags is extremely costly and difficult.

TRUTH: Recycling programs are growing all the time, and plastic recycling is actually a very simple, cost effective and energy efficient process. The main products currently made from recycled grocery bags is composite lumber, and new bags.

Marine Wildlife Tangled in Bags

MYTH: "Over 100 thousand marine animals die from becoming tangled in discarded plastic bags each year."

TRUTH: The report that this myth was based on (a Canadian study from 1987) didn't mention plastic bags at all. In 2002 the Australian Government commissioned a study on plastic bags, and the authors misquoted the 1987 study. What the original study found was that between 1981 and 1984 over 100 thousand marine mammals and birds were killed by being caught in discarded fishing nets and lines.

Litter

MYTH: Plastic bags are a major source of litter, and banning or taxing bags will reduce litter.

TRUTH: Plastic bags make up less than one percent of all litter. Cigarette butts, fast food packaging, and food wrappers are much larger contributors. Banning one item that becomes litter does nothing to change the mindset of those that discard trash improperly. Many of the bags that end up as litter blow off of garbage trucks or out of landfills. Landfill operators and garbage haulers should be held accountable for items that escape containment.

Since plastic bags are responsible for less than 1% of all litter, banning or taxing them will have no impact. The solution to litter is public education, recycling programs, and proper disposal.

Landfills

MYTH: Landfills are overflowing with plastic bags.

TRUTH: Plastic bags are easily recycled, but even if they do end up in a landfill, they take up a small fraction of one percent of landfill space. The average person uses about 500 plastic grocery bags per year, which by weight is about the same as a phone book or two. By comparison, the average person generates nearly one ton (2000 pounds) of garbage each year.

The major contributor to landfills is paper, wood and construction debris. Banning or taxing plastic bags would mean that more paper bags would get used, resulting in more waste going to the landfill.

Paper Bags are Better

MYTH: Many people believe that paper bags are a better environmental choice than plastic.

TRUTH: Paper bags, even recycled ones, require many times more energy to produce than plastic. Paper production and recycling also produces far more air and water pollution than plastic. And because paper bags weigh nearly 10 times that of plastic bags, they require 10 times the fuel to transport.

Paper bags can also be easily contaminated with oils, grease, and food waste that can contaminate entire batches of recycling. Plastic bags can be cleaned prior to recycling to eliminate contaminants.

Reusable Bags

MYTH: The prevailing environmental opinion is that heavyweight canvas, cotton, and polypropylene reusable bags are the best choice to replace plastic bags.

TRUTH: While these reusable bags are great for some uses, their environmental impact hasn't been properly studied. Most are made in China, where health and pollution standards are somewhat lax, and then shipped halfway across the globe to get to you.

Reusable bags also can't be used for the myriad of things that disposable bags are used for. If disposable bags aren't available at the checkout stand, people will purchase packaged bags for secondary uses such as trash can liners.

Bans and Taxes

MYTH: Taxing grocery bags or banning plastic bags will reduce greenhouse gasses and save the planet.

TRUTH: Since bags are a minimal contributor to all the problems associated with them (oil use, litter, landfill volume, etc.), bans and taxes simply won't do anything for the environment. And because the alternatives all require more fuel to create, recycle, and transport, eliminating plastic bags actually increases greenhouse gasses.

I agree completly with that MDM. I was simply addressing the concern that dog owners would be in a state of panick if the current plastic bags were removed. It's the best alternative to using a pooper scooper. Moreover, the current plastic bags take many more years to break down in the enviornment than biodegradable bags. They both have theeir drawbacks that goes without saying and really in the big scheme of things make up only a fraction of the massive amounts of plastic and packaing we toss out each year. Bring back the milk man! [ MDM wrote: Dog owners: I know it's unimaginable but there are a lot of companies out there making 100% biodegradable dog waste bags. Biodegradable bags will not 'biodegrade' in a landfill. Landfills are designed so stuff doesn't rot (or rots really, really slow). It won't matter if you use plastic or paper.[/quote]

Dog owners: I know it's unimaginable but there are a lot of companies out there making 100% biodegradable dog waste bags. Biodegradable bags will not 'biodegrade' in a landfill. Landfills are designed so stuff doesn't rot (or rots really, really slow). It won't matter if you use plastic or paper.

Honestly, what % of people recycle these plastic grocery bags properly? Properly means taking an "empty" (no doggy doo) dry plastic bag back to the grocery store or disposing of it in designated plastic bag recycling bin. Few at best.

Dog owners: I know it's unimaginable but there are a lot of companies out there making 100% biodegradable dog waste bags. You can buy them in bulk at U-line. Sorry, but if you can't afford these you shouldn't own a dog, especially a large dog. Perhaps the Hamilton Park Neighborhood Association or City Hall could buy up a large quantity of these and sell them at a discount.

Sure, taxing them will help minimize them a wee bit and perhaps get us all thinking about the virtues of reusable shopping bags but until they are gone for good they will still continue to clog our land fills and tumble down our streets.

Throwing a few 1 once shopping bags in our briefcase or pockets before we leave for work each day is a start. This is habbit forming, like checking for your wallet, keys and cell phone when you leave each day......just add your reusable shopping bags.

I'm sorry... I don't want any special ordinance... and sorry...

NO MORE FREAKIN taxes.

This should be dropped.

Until the City of Jersey City can come up with a balanced budget and cuts its wasteful spending and excess...

I don't want any part of STUPID wasteful ordinances.

I want CUTS... Any further ordinances should have cost cutting measures included.

i.e. A business owner does something... that causes a decrease in trash pick-up.. thus a savings for the city.

THERE YOU GO.

No more BS ordinances.

FG

Dan Levin is right on this. Tax the bags, don't ban them. Use the revenue to both reduce property taxes and reduce usage. An outright ban can be considered as a later ordinance.


http://www.nj.com/hudson/voices/index ... _to_tax_plastic_bags.html

Making an argument for the dreaded plastic bag here. It's a miserable night and I picked up some noodle soup from Ducky's and Dumplings on my way home tonight. I got soaked by the wind-swept rain on my 5-block walk home. My dinner wouldn't have survived the walk home if it hadn't been in a plastic bag. A paper bag would've turned into oatmeal in a matter of seconds. Now, I'm pretty good about bringing canvas bags with me when I go shopping, but no one leaves for work in the morning thinking they should bring along a reusable bag because they might be picking up dinner on the way home.

Also, I think an outright ban unfairly penalizes businesses, especially small ones. Perhaps the way to go about this is to start charging people for plastic bags, like they do in Germany. The price should be high enough to have a impact (say, 50 cents or $1) on future behavior but not high enough to make a customer walk out of the store (I would've gladly paid an extra $1 tonight for a plastic bag for my noodle soup).

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I don't know what kind of food you are carrying or for how long but yes, canvas bags can be washed.

People also can't use a canvas bag for dog poop, garbage, etc. Its just a superfluous "feel good" law that is just going to antagonize people in the long run....

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Because if you use them for carrying food you have to wash them or they turn into a bacteria / food poisoning breeding ground.

VERY interesting article in the NY Times about how the reusable grocery bags aren't so green....

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/nyr ... .html?src=me&ref=homepage

Also, Jersey City has it's own recycled bag business: www.bagthehabit.com and I noticed they are on this week's Make My City http://www.makemycity-jc.com/deals with discounts.

We just got one of these recycled compressible bags as a WNYC premium. My wife adores it! In it's bag it's about the size of a potato.



http://www.chicobag.com/p-35-chicobag-original-repete.aspx

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Well said T-Bird! Not all reform is "sexy" or popular for that matter. I still can't believe more people aren't using reusable canvas bags. (Forget about those cheap chinese plasticky ones).

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Civilized? Really? Do you know why there are no trash cans on the corners? It's because people throw their trash from their homes in the cans and they overflow. Nothing civilized about that.

Must be a downtown thing.. There is no trash cans in my area, and I think city owned cans are in journal Square and Central Ave. People here tend to be more civilized as we don?t have plastic bags all over our streets..


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Do you or "lostinjc" go to council meetings? Do you read the Jersey Journal, beyond what GrovePath provides? In the past month, Fulop has introduced legislation to eliminate health benefits for the boards of the JCIA and MUA, require municipal employees to work 25 years in order to qualify for health care in their retirement (up from the current 0 years.) He has vocally engaged the mayor's poor JCIA/DPW consolidation plan. He is engaged citywide on a number of political and charitable fronts.

Along with taxes, crime and the schools, trash is a problem in this city. Working to fix one shouldn't preclude efforts to address the others. Fortunately, he takes a bit more of a comprehensive approach to his job then the "analysis" that is performed here, complete with eye-rolling emoticons....

Isn't it great, we have the city continuing to raise taxes and all what the mayor and city council cares about is doing away with plastic bags.. Fulop needs to realize Jersey City goes beyond the downtown city limits and if he continues to push what all the yuppies and hipsters want, he?ll remain a council member..

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Bingo.

These idiots are banning plastic bags while their ship is called the Titanic.

I pretty much re-use every plastic bag from the supermarket. Everything from lining smaller trash cans to cleaning out the cat litter box. If the plastic bags were eliminated I would end up having to buy plastic bags.

As for reducing litter... Its not like those paper bags are going to dissolve after the first rain storm. We will just replace plastic litter with paper litter. J.C. will still be a complete mess.

I see the point for the dog owner and I use them when I do painting projects but after all is said and done I would prefer that these were eliminated. Sadly, the JC police do not enforce littering laws so the ignorant continue to throw these bags all over the city.

It's not hard to train yourself to use reusable bags. I use between 1-3 reusable shopping bags when I go to the grocery store.

If Healy and Fulop are serious about this they should have a "Reusable Bag Day" where citzens can go to city hall or other locations to get these reusable bags at a discount. Make a big deal out of it and market this as a positive for the city. There is a local reusable bag company in town called Bag The Habbit that should be involved.

Just one aspect of this plastic bag nightmare:

http://tiny.cc/7ngga

Retailers tell Jersey City a total ban on plastic bags doesn't make sense for a number of reasons

Saturday, November 13, 2010
By MELISSA HAYES
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Jersey City's hopes to bag the plastic has major retailers offering to campaign for reusable bags if they can keep the traditional ones, too.

Lorelia Mottese, manager of government relations for Wakefern Food Corporation, which owns ShopRite, took issue with the clause in a proposed city ordinance that calls for compostable bags, saying they are not recyclable like the single-use plastic bags that the law aims to phase out.

"If we were to get a compostable bag into our current recycling operation, that contaminates the load, which means all of that plastic brought in by the consumer cannot be reintroduced into the market," she said.

Rocco D'Antonio, business development manager of Penn Jersey, a plastic and paper bag supplier, added that compostable bags cost 10 times more to make than traditional plastic and require three times more material because they are weaker.

The ordinance would also require the use of recyclable paper or reusable checkout bags.

D'Antonio said replacing plastic bags with paper would require 10 times more storage space at area stores.

Mottese noted that ShopRite promotes plastic recycling and has bins to deposit the bags in at stores, including Metro Plaza in Jersey City. She said the company also offers incentives to customers who give their plastic, paper and reusable bags a second life.

Customers who bring paper or plastic bags back to the store for reuse get a two-cent rebate per bag. Customers who use reusable bags get a five-cent rebate per bag.

She said this year customers reused more than 55 million bags, getting $2.6 million in rebates on their grocery bills, a 17 percent increase in bag reuse since 2009 and a 20 percent increase in rebates.

She also noted that the company has sold 1.7 million reusable bags this year, up 200,000 from 2009.

"We strongly believe in educating the consumer," she said, adding that the company is willing to partner with Jersey City to promote reusable bags.

Following the public hearing on the ordinance at Wednesday's meeting, the City Council voted to table the measure for further tweaking.

Ward E Councilman Steven Fulop, who sponsored the measure with Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy, said he doesn't plan to eliminate the compostable bag clause. But he said he does want to talk to businesses.

The ordinance calls for big supermarkets to phase out the plastic bags first, then chain pharmacies and eventually smaller businesses.

As my grandmother used to say, this is making the bed while the house is on fire.

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Let's sacrifice the environment so people have something to carry dog crap in. There's got to be an alternative.

I buy garbage bags for my garbage can and I put garbage into them. What raw waste are you even talking about anyway? This sounds very strange to me. My $10 garbage can in my kitchen has a lid that closes. Bugs and rodents don't get in. When I buy groceries I use a cloth reusable bag that most grocery stores offer, throw it in my bookbag, or carry it by hand if possible. This ordinance is meant to reduce the amount of plastic bags people just bring home to carry food in and then throw out, even if it's "reused" once for bringing lunch to work or uh... raw waste.