INSIGHT: Industry fights back at plastic bag ban

By Al Greenwood

HOUSTON (ICIS news)--The US plastics industry has filed its first lawsuit challenging restrictions on the use of plastic bags, but legal challenges alone may not be enough to curtail a growing trend to ban them.

Earlier this month, a group made up of recyclers and bag makers sued the city of Oakland, California, arguing that its bag ban violated state environmental statutes.

"In this case, it was pretty clear that Oakland hasn't done its homework," said Kevin Kelly, chief executive of Emerald Packaging, and a member the Coalition to Support Plastic Bag Recycling.

The plastics industry coalition accuses the city of adopting the ban without researching the damage it could do to the environment, as called for by state law.

More than 60% of paper bags end up in landfills, where they persist as long as plastic bags, according to the authors of the suit. Meanwhile, it takes 91% less energy to recycle plastic than an equal weight of paper.

Moreover, paper-bag production creates 50 times more water pollution than that for plastic bags, the suit says.

The suit asks the Alameda County Superior Court to halt the ban until Oakland complies with the state's environmental law.

The suit is also significant in that Kelly’s company, which makes bags to pack produce, is not yet the target of any ban. But, he fears that movement could spread to other forms of packaging.

"We can't become the whipping boy for the environmental movement," Kelly said.

Several other cities are considering laws that would levy fines on the bags or ban them altogether. Those cities include Boston, Massachusetts; Portland, Oregon; and Santa Cruz, California.

While the bans are problematic, the real root of the issue is the assumption that paper is better for the environment than plastic.

Lawsuits may be needed, but to stop the bans from spreading, the industry needs to continue to engage public opinion with factual evidence on why alternatives to plastics are dangerous.

< previous article(ICIS Podcast: Chemical News Central 2 November 2009)

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