County mulls banning plastic bags

KINGSTON, N.Y. » Travel practically anywhere in Ulster County and chances are you’ve seen it: single use plastic bags blowing in the wind like multicolored tumbleweeds, dotting the hillsides, or washed up on the shores of the river, streams and lakes.

Under a proposed local law now under consideration by the Ulster County Legislature, by this time in 2019 sights like that could become a thing of the past.

Members of the Legislature’s Environment and Energy Committee on Thursday adopted a resolution setting a public hearing on a law, to be known as the “Bring Your Own Bag Act,” that would ban the distribution of plastic bags by practically every retailer in the county beginning on April 22, 2019.

The resolution will go to the full Legislature for consideration on May 15. If adopted, county residents will have the opportunity to voice their opinion on the proposed ban in June.

The bags, used in businesses ranging from supermarkets to clothing stores, are considered by some to be a scourge on the environment because they are not biodegradable.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, between 500 billion and one trillion plastic bags are used each year,

with less than five percent of those recycled.

Environmental groups estimate that tens of thousands of animals, including whales, birds, seals and turtles, die every year from plastic bag litter in the water because they mistake the bags for food, such as jellyfish.

County legislators have been working on a plastic ban bag for more than a year, with at one point, two separate local laws proposed.

Legislator David Donaldson said he pulled his proposal in favor of one sponsored by Legislator Tracey Bartels.

“We had the two of them out, so we decided to sort of combine them,” he said. “We ended up using hers,” Donaldson, D-Kingston said.

The local law as proposed would ban the use of all single-use plastic bags and would require stores to charge 5-cents for recyclable paper bags provided to customers.

Fines for violating the law would range from up to $100 for the first violation after a written warning to up to $500 for the third and subsequent violations.

The law was amended during the committee meeting to exempt restaurants

located outside of grocery stores, supermarkets, convenience stores or foodmarts.

“The exemption for restaurants is widespread in large cities because of take out (business),” said Bartels, a non-enrolled legislator who caucuses with Democrats. “I prefer there to be no exemptions, but I understand why (some want one).”

Bartels suggested that committee members discuss the exemption with members of their respective

caucuses to decide whether to leave that exemption in place or to remove it.

Also for legislators to consider in caucus is whether to stagger the roll-out date for implementation, with stores of more than 10,000 square feet be required to cease using the plastic bags in April 2019 and all other stores ceasing their usage six months later.

On Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed a statewide ban on the use

of plastic bags that would also block local governments from adopting their own laws or impose fees for alternative bags.

Environmentalists have said that the law doesn’t go far enough to stop the use of plastic bags or incentivize people to use reusable bags.

“The governor is not quite solving the problem,” said Donaldson, saying the governor’s plan just swaps out one environmental problem for another.