Nearly 40 municipalities and counties across California have enacted policies prohibiting the sale of plastic bags, and the Culver City City Council might soon have the opportunity to weigh in on the possibility of banning them in their city.
And a recent court ruling in favor of a South Bay city’s attempt to institute a ban without an environmental impact report could influence how Culver City crafts its potential legislation.
City Atty. Carol Schwab recently told the News that her office is planning to bring a proposed ordinance before the city’s governing body by early or mid-September. “We plan to give the city council a number of options that they can choose to look at and give us direction on, if they choose to,” Schwab said.
The July 21 unanimous California Supreme Court decision allows Manhattan Beach to proceed with a municipal ban on plastic sacks, which was approved in 2008. The high court’s ruling reverses an earlier state appellate court’s verdict.
“Substantial evidence and common sense support [Manhattan Beach’s] determination that its ordinance would have no significant environmental effect,” Justice Carol Corrigan wrote in the court’s 24-page ruling.
“It certainly does add another option,” Schwab responded when asked if the state Supreme Court decision would be factored in when her office begins designing the Culver City proposed ordinance.
Stephen Joseph, counsel for the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, said while the court upheld Manhattan Beach’s right to outlaw the sale of single-use bags, there are some bright spots for his client.
“The Save the Plastic Bag Coalition has legal standing to file California Environmental Quality Act actions. This is a very significant aspect of the [court] decision,” he said in a statement. “It means that under certain circumstances, businesses can challenge ‘green’ projects that may do more harm than good to the environment.”
Los Angeles County approved a ban on single-use bags on Nov. 16 last year that also included the passage of an environmental impact report that is in effect countywide. The EIR deals with the environmental concerns of outlawing plastic and the sale of paper bags and requires stores in the unincorporated areas of the county to provide paper bags at a charge of 10 cents.
Schwab said her office is also considering using the county EIR as part of its proposal to the council. “We think it’s a good EIR,” she said.
A group of residents and advocates in Culver City who would like to see single-use bags outlawed has been pressing the council for more than a year for an ordinance like other cities have adopted. “Since special interests are so firmly entrenched at a state and national level, it is up to us at a local level to speak out to our representatives,” said Andy Shrader of the Clean Seas Coalition.
Community activist Meghan Sahli-Wells is also waiting with anticipating for the proposed ordinance to come before the council. “I’m glad that it’s moving forward, but it seems like it’s been a long time,” she said.
Culver City has done a fine job on sustainability, especially with its municipal transit agency, said Sahli-Wells, a member of the environmental organization Transition Culver City. “But there’s a lot more to be done, and for once I’d like to see our city take the lead on something, like we could have with a plastic bag ban,” she added.
Culver City has been analyzing what other municipalities have been doing with their laws outlawing plastic, according to Schwab. “We looked at many cities, including Santa Monica, Calabasas, Long Beach and Marin County, among others,” said the city attorney.
Kirsten James, the water quality director of Santa Monica-based Heal the Bay, thinks the Manhattan Beach ruling will assist municipalities that are seeking ordinances that prohibit the sale of plastic sacks. “I believe that it will open the floodgates for cities to move forward on banning plastic bags,” she said.
Shrader, a Mar Vista resident who is working with local environmental organizations, believes the advocacy for outlawing single-use sacks has gained momentum since last year and thinks the screening of the anti-plastic documentary “Bag It!” in Culver City was an important step for anti-plastic proponents.
“I was pleased to see Councilman Andrew Weissman attend our screening of the
documentary ‘Bag It!’ and I’m proud of our scrappy little coalition fighting to raise awareness about plastic waste in Culver City, including Transition Culver City and Ballona Creek Renaissance members,” he said.
Sahli-Wells, who has been involved in a variety of sustainability initiatives, believes if the city had an environmental sustainability committee like the Culver City Unified District Board of Education, an ordinance might have come sooner.
“That would have been the perfect vehicle to discuss this in a public forum with people who are knowledgeable about this topic. This was a golden opportunity, and I think that if we had a sustainability committee, we would be a lot closer [to a ban] right now,” she asserted.
Shrader found it ironic that plastic manufacturers and their supporters are calling for extensive environmental review now that governments are prohibiting the sale of plastic bags.
“What I want to know is where was the EIR back when the plastics industry
began distributing plastic bags?” he asked. “Did they know how damaging they would be to our oceans and what a blight they would be in urban neighborhoods? Cities should be suing them instead.”
Schwab said city officials would also involve local businesses to solicit their input in drafting any ordinance, as many others cities have. “My understanding is that most businesses [in cities with bans on plastic bags] have been very cooperative so far,” she said.
The Save the Plastic Bag Coalition said they have legal standing now to enforce the requirement that larger cities and counties create an EIR for plastic sack bans and smaller cities would have to as well based on “cumulative impacts.”
“We are delighted with this decision,” Joseph added. “We will continue to demand EIRs.” The attorney declined to comment on Culver City’s decision to consider an ordinance banning single-use bags.
The American Chemistry Council, which opposed a state ban on plastic bags last year in California, declined to comment on the court ruling.
