Montgomery County, Maryland, is considering a change to its grocery bag policy that would ban the use of plastic bags at most stores and double the fee on paper bags to 10 cents. The Washington Post reports the proposal aims to strengthen the county's current bag law and encourage reusable bag use.
If approved, the new bag policy would go into effect on July 1. But there's a lot to consider before that happens.
The county's current policy, which went into effect in 2012, requires businesses to charge 5 cents for each paper and plastic bag, with a portion of the fee going to the county. But county officials say the current policy was poorly enforced.
A 2023 report by the county's Office of the Inspector General found the county failed to ensure that at least 2,100 businesses complied with the law between 2018 and 2022. The report says this failure led the county to lose as much as $8.2 million in related revenue each year during that period. This fee was meant to fund improvements to the county's water quality, according to the report.
County officials say the current law hasn't helped curb the use of single-use plastic bags, a main goal of the policy. The 2023 county report found an overall increase in bags purchased year over year during the five-year period studied.
"We were not actually meeting the goal of changing people's behavior," Montgomery County Council president Kate Stewart said in a recent public hearing on the law, according to the Post.
Plastic bags are a huge environmental strain — one that many states have worked to address in recent years. Recent data estimates about 5 trillion plastic bags are produced each year — and almost all of them end up in the environment. NPR reports many recycling facilities can't take plastic bags because the soft material jams equipment.
Plastic bags are one of the most common forms of pollution found in oceans and the environment, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. Plastic bags break down into microplastics, which pollute the air, soil, and water — and never truly disappear from the environment.
Paper bags are a better option because they are biodegradable, recyclable, and made from a renewable resource. But producing a paper bag takes "about four times as much energy as it takes to produce a plastic bag," according to National Geographic. That's why using a reusable bag is preferable to all single-use options.
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Climate activists and environmental groups largely support Montgomery County's new proposal, seeing it as a planet-positive shift.
"We have a moral responsibility to do whatever we can locally to reduce the tsunami of plastic, which is now a global crisis," Marion Edey, a volunteer with the Sierra Club, said during the public hearing. "The only true solution is to curb plastic production at its source."
But not everyone supports the proposed update. The Maryland Retailers Alliance told the Post the proposed policy would "increase costs for businesses."
The proposed law would charge customers 10 cents per paper bag, 5 cents of which would go to the county. But the alliance says paper bags currently cost businesses about 10 to 12 cents each, meaning businesses would lose money on the bags.
Under the proposal, those receiving food assistance would be exempt from the paper bag tax, helping to alleviate a cost burden on low-income people. Though a well-meaning addition to the proposal, The Maryland Retailers Alliance tells the Post the exemption is impractical. Cashiers are not allowed to ask customers if they are paying with benefits, which would complicate the process of excluding such customers from a fee.
Stewart said at the public hearing that the exemption aims to allow those on food assistance to "shop with dignity," ensuring they can carry groceries home if using public transport with a prohibitive cost.
"Working with those businesses to figure out how to do that is something we very much want to do," she said. "Our goal is really to make it easier for them, not harder."
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