County to allow thicker plastic bags
PALO ALTO — In the eyes of government officials who deplore their use, not all plastic carryout bags are equally evil.
The worst of the lot — labeled “single use” plastic bags, presumably because they are used only once and then tossed— are forbidden in most Peninsula cities, with San Carlos becoming the latest to fall in line with a ban Monday. Palo Alto, which already prohibited grocery stores from using them, expanded its ban Monday to include all retailers.
But retailers who use carryout bags at least 2.25 millimeters thick — roughly the heft of two singleuse bags — are off the hook as long as they charge a minimum of 10 cents each for them. The thicker bags qualify as “reusable” under ordinances drafted by Palo Alto and about 20 Peninsula cities that have modeled theirs after San Mateo County’s.
Dean Peterson, San Mateo County’s director of environmental health, said the “industry standard” for defining reusable bags is one with a thickness of at least 2.25 millimeters.
Because it was concerned that the heavier plastic bags might proliferate like the flimsy ones, the county requires retailers to charge a minimum of 10 cent each for their use, as does Palo Alto.
“The hope is, if people are paying 10 cents for it, that they will reuse it,” Peterson said.
Not everyone has heard that the thicker plastic bags are legal, which is why five of six complaints lodged since the bans went into effect in a dozen county cities on April 22 involve retailers who use them.
Arteaga’s Starlite Supermarket on Fifth Avenue in unincorporated North Fair Oaks is one of the businesses that packs groceries in plastic carryout bags of the heftier type for 10 cents each when shoppers show up without their own reusable bags. The store’s white bags are marked “Reusable” in blue letters.
Owner Juan Arteaga said he chose to get the thicker plastic bags because they’re “more durable and it’s more comfortable for people to carry” than bags made out of paper.
Michelle Radcliffe, owner of the Grocery Outlet in South San Francisco, gave a similar reason for using the hefty bags.
“Customers prefer them over the paper, they’re more durable,” Radcliffe said. “They’re meant for nearly a hundred uses; there’s no way a paper bag will hold up that long.”
Peterson said the county would consider revising its ordinance if the thicker plastic bags end up littering local waterways and clogging up the sewer systems like the thinner ones do. “The jury is out right now,” Peterson said.
He said a large coastal cleanup event scheduled for September could reveal whether the thicker bags are discarded as carelessly as the thinner ones. And at the end of the year, the county will have collected stores’ tallies of the kinds of bags they’re distributing, as required by the ordinance.
“At that point, we’ll have a pretty good idea of how many of these bags are being sold,” Peterson said.
Redwood City resident Kaia Eakin, who wrote to the county in support of the plastic bags ban during the environmental review process, said she’s concerned about the exception being made.
“It’s a shame,” Eakin said.