Support and opposition were shared Tuesday on a proposed plastic bag ban.
The county council bill would prohibit retail establishments from giving out plastic carryout bags, with some exceptions. The bill would also raise the bag tax to 10 cents on each paper bag given, according to council documents.
Kit Gage, Advocacy Director of Friends of Sligo Creek, supports the bill. She said the negative implications of plastics for the stream environment are being better understood — “This is true for whole bags as well as microparticles of plastic that are what bags degrade into, which all creatures including humans are ingesting,” Gage said during a council hearing Tuesday.
Other organizations supporting the bill included Nature Forward, Beyond Plastics, Climate Coalition Montgomery County, Zero Waste Montgomery County and the Sierra Club.
Resident Bill Kominers said the legislation is “all stick and no carrot” to the consumer. He said there are not reusable bags available for all types of purchases and that there should be exemptions for bags above a certain size to hold large items — “Not all trips are to the grocery store and not all products are the size of groceries.”
“Buy one or two pillows at Target, try to find a reusable bag to put them in to take home,” Kominers said.
Former State Delegate Robin Ficker testified against the bill, saying, “we’re nickel and dimed enough.”
Retired environmental policy professor Dr. Vivian Thomson supports the ban and raising the paper bag tax, saying “many jurisdictions around the world, including a long list of entire countries, have banned lightweight plastic bags because they wind up as litter.”
Council President Kate Stewart is the bill’s lead sponsor. Co-sponsors are Council Vice President Will Jawando, and Councilmembers Laurie-Anne Sayles, Evan Glass, Natali Fani-González, and Sidney Katz.
Exceptions to the plastic bag ban would include dry-cleaned clothes, prescription drugs, newspaper bags, perishable items like meat or fish, and seasonal events like street fairs, among other exceptions, according to council documents.
