Fremont to ban plastic straws
Fremont is about to join the growing list of cities banning restaurants, bars and cafes from offering plastic straws to patrons.
The City Council voted 4-0 Tuesday to direct staff to draft an ordinance that would regulate the distribution of straws and possibly other “single-use” plastics such as drink stirrers. Councilman Rick Jones was absent.
The draft ordinance is to be presented to the council for approval in about six months, city staff said.
By then, a bill signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown last month already will prohibit full-service restaurants from automatically handing out plastic straws unless requested by the customer. The law takes effect Jan. 1, 2019.
Called AB 1884, the law would affect about 130 restaurants in Fremont, according to Ken Pianin, the city’s solid waste manager.
The council asked staff to explore tighter restrictions than those the state law would impose.
Whereas the state law requires an eatery to provide a plastic straw only if asked, Fremont’s ordinance potentially could ban businesses from distributing any single-use plastic straws altogether. If a customer were to request a straw, the new rules could require a compostable one be provided, according to city staff reports.
Similar bans and restrictions could be placed on cutlery and stirrers.
And while the state law only applies to “full-service” restaurants, Fremont’s new rules could affect roughly 300 businesses in the city, including fastcasual restaurants, bars, cafes and juice bars, Pianin said.
Staff estimated that $100,000 would have to be spent on an initial education campaign and to annually enforce or ensure businesses follow the rules.
Vice Mayor Vinnie Bacon initially said he favored even more restrictive rules than what was ultimately adopted, but Mayor Lily Mei and Councilman Raj Salwan both signaled they’d favor a lighter touch. The council ended up supporting something in the middle.
These kind of restrictions “can enhance the potential for waste reduction and reduce street litter and can enhance public education and awareness,” the staff report states. However, they may cost businesses more money to comply with and the city more to enforce.
“Single-use plastic straws are frequently identified as a pollutant in streets and storm drains, and are a common item picked up during cleanup events such as Coastal Cleanup Day,” the report says.
“Many single-use plastic items are an unnecessary use of resources, cause litter and marine pollution and do not automatically need to be distributed to consumers who do not require them,” the report adds.
About 75 percent of residents who responded to a survey Fremont posted to its online Open City Hall forum supported banning plastic straws and replacing them with paper straws, the staff report notes.
About 18 percent indicated they opposed it. Some said those with disabilities or health conditions that necessitate the use of straws would be unfairly affected, while others claimed the city should focus on more pressing issues.
“By 2050, plastics in the ocean will outweigh fish pound for pound if society keeps producing and failing to properly manage plastics at predicted rates,” a state assembly analysis of AB 1884 wrote, quoting a January 2016 report by the World Economic Forum.
If Fremont follows through on the ban, it would have the company of at least 12 California cities that have adopted some form of restrictions, including Alameda, Richmond, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco in the Bay Area.