Oahu consumers will have until summer 2015 to get used to the idea of not getting a plastic bag when they shop at a grocery store or other retailer.
The City Council on Wednesday voted 7-1 to approve a bill that bans distribution of nonbiodegradable plastic bags at checkout counters, what’s known in the retail industry as the "point of sale," effective July 1, 2015. Nonrecyclable paper bags will also be banned.
Council Chairman Ernie Martin, who co-authored the original bill, said the latest draft ensures retailers have ample time to use their existing inventories of bags.
Honolulu would be the last of Hawaii’s counties to establish an islandwide ban on plastic bags. Maui and Kauai counties already have bans in place while Hawaii County passed a measure that will take effect next year.
Bill 10 now goes to Mayor Peter Carlisle. In a statement emailed to news organizations Wednesday afternoon, Carlisle gave no indication if he will sign the bill, saying he will review the measure and accept public comment before deciding.
"I always believed that as long as people litter their plastic bags, something needs to be done," Carlisle said. "Right now, properly discarded plastic bags are incinerated for energy at HPOWER."
Councilman Nestor Garcia was the lone no vote. Councilman Stanley Chang, who is attending a conference abroad, did not attend Wednesday’s meeting at Kapolei Hale.
In previous meetings, Council members appeared to favor a bill with a gradual move to a plastic bag ban that would have included charging a fee for distribution of plastic bags for a short time.
It was a path embraced by Garcia and some in the Oahu retail industry.
A bill that would have charged consumers for plastic bags at points of sale stalled in the state Legislature this session. An attempted change to the bill by Garcia that would have charged consumers 5 cents for a single-use biodegradable or plastic bag failed to gain support from other Council members.
Martin said he and others did not like the idea of a fee for any length of time. He and others were also concerned because the Council cannot impose certain fees without approval from the Legislature.
Retailers appeared mixed on the final language of the bill.
Carol Pregill, president of the Retail Merchants of Hawaii, said her organization likes the latest version.
"It permits retailers to provide environmentally friendly, cost-effective choices for our customers without the imposition of administrative burdens on businesses to implement," Pregill said.
But representatives for Times, Big Save, Safeway and the Hawaii Food Industry Association said they opposed the final language.
Bob Gutierrez, government affairs director representing Times and Big Save, said his companies would prefer "a statewide solution" that would also have addressed paper bag fees.
"As you know, the cost per bag is a tremendous cost to us which, in turn, is a cost to our consumers," Gutierrez said. Big Save and Times stores on Maui and Kauai have incurred costs of about $30,000 to move to paper bags.
"We’ve absorbed most of the cost at this time," he said. "At some point or another, the consumer is impacted by that."
Melissa Pavlicek, who represents Times and Safeway, said both retail chains have experienced "dramatically increased costs" in the other counties where plastic bag bans are already in place.
"Unfortunately, consumers are not choosing reusable bags on the neighbor islands," Pavlicek said. "They are going to not only paper, but double paper, so we would hope to see Honolulu also consider a fee."
Environmental groups and several Oahu consumers said they support the bill wholeheartedly and hope to include all paper bags in the future as well.
Robert Harris, executive director of the Sierra Club Hawaii chapter, said he would like environmentalists to work with retailers on a bill that would impose a fee on paper bags.
"We want to move toward a sustainable option, which is to use reusable bags to ensure that people will want to use reusable bags going forward," Harris said.
Under the bill approved Wednesday, the ban is specific to point-of-sale distribution of bags and allows for plastic bags to be distributed elsewhere such as bags used to package loose fruit, vegetables and nuts, or to contain or wrap specialty items such as frozen foods, beverages, flowers, laundry or live fish.
The bill defines a plastic bag as "a bag that is made from nonbiodegradable plastic, and is not specifically designed and manufactured for multiple re-use."
A recyclable paper bag is defined as a paper bag that is "100 percent recyclable … contains a minimum of 40 percent post consumer recycled content and … displays the words ‘reusable’ and ‘recyclable’ in a highly visible manner on the outside of the bags." Most paper bags now distributed are believed to meet that definition, Council researchers said.
A business caught violating the measure would be fined between $100 and $1,000 for each day of violation.
