The question of whether shopping bags can be both plastic and biodegradable has thrown a possible wrench into plans to ban the bags on Oahu next year.
The Honolulu City Council passed the original plastic bag ban measure in April 2012 with a start date of July 1, 2015. The ordinance bans the distribution of plastic bags by retailers at checkout but gives an exemption to plastic bags labeled as biodegradable, defined as "a substance that can be broken down in the environment by natural processes."
But Councilman Breene Harimoto said officials with the city Department of Environmental Services have voiced concerns about monitoring and the enforceability of the exemption.
"They would have to, in essence, certify that bags being used are biodegradable, and what they discovered is that there really is no standard as to what is biodegradable," he said.
So Harimoto introduced Bill 38 last week to ban plastic bags even if they label themselves as "biodegradable." That’s because there is no clear established definition and because environmentalists object to the exemption of any plastic bags.
The measure will be heard for the first time by the Council on Wednesday.
The bill would also delay the ban’s effective date by six months to Jan. 1, 2016, to allow merchants to deal with the change.
Honolulu is the only of Hawaii’s four counties not to have a plastic ban bill in place. Harimoto pointed out that the three other counties do not exempt so-called biodegradable bags.
Suzanne Frazer, co-founder of the group Beach Environmental Awareness Campaign Hawai‘i, said "biodegradable plastic" is a misnomer and that the state of California has banned the use of the phrase.
"There is no such thing as biodegradable plastic," Frazer said. "Plastic lasts forever."
Those bags labeled biodegradable typically include additives that make the bags break up into smaller pieces. But that just makes the plastic more dangerous for sea turtles, which may be attracted by their smaller pieces and ingest them, she said.
The smaller pieces also make it more difficult for people who clean up litter, she said.
Her group has had locally used bags labeled biodegradable tested by mainland laboratories that have come back showing they do not break down, Frazer said.
David Hong, owner of Island Plastic Bags, contends strongly there should be strict standards about what can be allowed.
"Otherwise, you’re going to have all these charlatans running around saying, ‘I have biodegradable bags!’" said Hong, who maintains he is still the only manufacturer of biodegradable bags in Hawaii.
Hong said he agrees that there is no true widely used standard for what is biodegradable, although the standards group ASTM International, formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials, is working to come up with one.
However, he said, there is a standard for so-called "compostability."
Compostable bags that meet ASTM standards break down in 60 days, he said.
"If they’re not going to choose a biodegradable standard, then go with the compostable standard," he said.
Frazer said that from an environmental standpoint, compostable ASTM-standard bags are OK, but they are not plastic. The ones that she has seen are made of 100 percent vegetable fiber and contain no polymers, she said.
But as bags used to carry goods, they are useless because they tend to break, she said.
"They’re not strong enough to carry groceries," she said. "They break down right away."
Council Chairman Ernie Martin, who co-introduced the original plastic ban bill with former Councilwoman Tulsi Gabbard, now a congresswoman, said he opposes the changes in Harimoto’s bill.
"The existing law was crafted to give the department and all affected parties sufficient time to plan for the ban when it takes effect next year," Martin said in a statement. "It would be better to assess the effectiveness of the law after it has been implemented than to delay this further."
But Mayor Kirk Caldwell said his administration supports the intent of the measure and that it eliminates "ineffective language relating to biodegradable bags." Additionally, "it brings our county into the same regulatory scheme as Hawaii and Maui Counties, greatly enhancing the effectiveness of our plastic bag ban," the mayor said in a statement.
The original ordinance also carved out exemptions for the use of:
» Plastic bags for packing of loose items including fruit, vegetables, nuts and ground coffee.
» Bags used specifically to contain or wrap frozen foods.
» Bags used to protect or transport prepared foods and beverages.
Those exemptions would remain even if the new bill were to become law.
