Every city in Santa Clara County has a policy banning single-use plastic bags, except Gilroy, which has favored economy over ecology.
But City Councilmember Cat Tucker now said she’s ready to re-launch an effort to join 147 California cities in requiring people to bring their own bags to markets or be charged to buy paper bags.
Environmentalists point to evidence that plastic bags are polluting oceans and killing wildlife. So far, Gilroy’s politicians have worried about the effects of banning the bags on companies that have to retool and consumers who might be pressed to pay for bags.
“I can understand the arguments on both sides,” said Mayor Pro Tempore Peter Leroe-Muñoz. “I can understand that [a ban] might be an environmentally conscious perspective. Then there are business concerns as well. What would a ban do to small businesses and to the community owners of those businesses?”
Gilroy has flirted with the idea of a ban on single-use plastic bags before. The issue of whether to ban or place a fine on bags came before City Council in 2007, around the time the economy began to slide. Tucker later helped write the template for the bag bans in place in Santa Clara as a member of the Recycling and Waste Committee. However, at the time she was against banning the bags in Gilroy.
“They were going to start charging 25 cents per bag,” Tucker said. “I said this is not the right time, it would be a slap in the face to people who are barely making it month to month.”
Another factor in her decision was the potential cost to small businesses in the city, who would need to update computer systems and cash registers to keep up with the change.
As the economy has improved, Tucker has changed her position. She and the other members of the Recycling and Waste Committee developed a plan that was adaptable to the needs of the county as well as each city.
“The original template was flexible enough for each city to tweak it how they wanted it,” Tucker said. The template also called for an 18-month implementation period to allow businesses time to adapt to the change.
In Gilroy, though, the ban never got enough support to pass. “I have brought it up pretty much every year at the city council goal setting session, and nobody is ever willing,” Tucker said.
Other council members’ opinions on the issue vary.
“I’m not in favor of plastic bag bans,” Councilmember Terri Aulman said. “I think it’s a money maker for stores, and from what I’ve read I don’t think it makes much of a difference.”
Councilmember Dion Bracco opposes placing a fine on bags, but he would support a ban. “That’s actually doing something,” Bracco said. “[A fine] doesn’t really affect anything, it’s just another way to get money from folks.”
Bracco also cited issues with the current city-by-city approach. “A truly a better way to handle something is statewide rather than it being different in each city and county.”
Mayor Perry Woodward agreed. “The merchants would have the benefit of a one system and one set of rules instead of having to deal with different rules in different municipalities,” Woodward said.
A statewide ban may be on its way. In 2014, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law banning plastic bags across the state starting July 1, 2015. However, a petition to allow California voters to decide the issue gathered enough signatures to delay implementation, and the issue will be up for a vote in November.
Tucker doubts that a ban would be able to pass on a state level. When the issue first came before City Council, Tucker remembers the sudden increased presence of special interest groups.
“I got so many calls from the chemical and plastics industries,” Tucker said. “They have a huge lobbyist group. They called all of us. They were at every meeting. I’m not sure how it would go at the state level, because they will pay tons of money to fight it.”
Tucker is not deterred, however. “I have brought it up every year,” she said. “I will bring it up again.” The next goal setting session for the Gilroy City Council is April 8 and 9.
According to Environment California, a nonprofit group that works on environmental legislation at the state level, 123,000 tons of plastic bags are thrown out in California annually. These bags end up in waterways and oceans, where they break into smaller and smaller pieces in a process called photodegradation. These smaller pieces can be easily swallowed by fish and other wildlife, or can accumulate in increasingly higher concentrations in ecosystems.
