After a flood of opposition from neighboring cities, as well as
consumer and business advocate groups, the Santa Clara County
Recycling and Waste Reduction Commission decided to set aside a
proposed ordinance that would have levied a tax on paper and
plastic single-use retail bags.
After a flood of opposition from neighboring cities, as well as consumer and business advocate groups, the Santa Clara County Recycling and Waste Reduction Commission decided to set aside a proposed ordinance that would have levied a tax on paper and plastic single-use retail bags.
Commission chair Jamie McLeod said the county is still focused on reaching the goal of reducing litter and increasing recycling. But based on public input presented to the commission in the months since the ordinance was proposed, McLeod said the staff will look into other ways to reach that goal.
“There’s a lot of recognition that we have a problem (with litter), and a lot of the cities were uncomfortable with moving forward with the ordinance,” McLeod said. “The idea is to focus on the end goal, not the strategy.” She explained that while the county is still committed to reducing use of the bags overall, the strong opposition encountered by the original $.25-a-bag ordinance shows that any approach to do that should provide flexibility.
The commission’s staff will research the viability of allowing the county’s 16 cities to choose among multiple options before the next meeting in April.
Those options include an even more restrictive approach than was initially proposed, such as a ban on plastic bags, and less-restrictive education and outreach efforts to promote recycling and clean up litter, McLeod said.
In December, the commission considered adopting a model ordinance that would charge consumers a tax of $.25 for each paper and plastic single-use bag they carried out of retail stores, including grocery, drug and department stores. Restaurants would have been exempt from the tax, and the proceeds would have gone to the retailers who collected the revenues, and to pay for recycling and litter pickup efforts in cities.
While Morgan Hill city staff have long felt that a fee or tax on the use of such bags would be an effective way to reduce waste, other cities, citizens and organizations have vehemently opposed the tax.
One of those cities is Gilroy, where city officials immediately voiced disapproval of the tax when it was proposed, citing the financial strain it would place on its citizens in an already difficult economic time.
McLeod said that Gilroy council member Cat Tucker, who is on the RWRC, worked hard to represent these concerns on the commission, and its members decided that a uniform bag tax is not the one-size-fits-all approach they sought.
“She really pushed the commission to look at a broader range of options,” McLeod said.
Also stiffly opposed to the original draft ordinance were the chambers of commerce of Gilroy and Morgan Hill, who argued that the move would hurt small businesses.
Another vocal opponent of the bag tax has been the American Chemistry Council, which has offered to work with Santa Clara County and its cities on other ways to reduce the use of plastic bags, promote recycling and pick up more litter.
On the other hand, some have favored an even more restrictive ordinance. McLeod said Palo Alto, for example, has considered banning plastic bags outright while charging a fee for the use of paper retail bags.
