Baltimore’s plastic bag ban is set to take effect on Friday Oct. 1, and after months of postponements, residents and businesses are bracing for the change.
The ordinance bans plastic bags at checkout. Alternative single-use options, such as paper bags, will be subject to a 5-cent fee, and a penny of that fee goes to the city.
Grocery and convenience stores, gas stations, shops and restaurants are all subject to the ban. The aim is to create a collective behavior change among Baltimore consumers to reusable bags, officials said.
“So much of the litter that we see in our streets, in our trees as well as in our waterways are plastic bags and we really want to address that issue upstream,” said Ava Richardson of the city’s sustainability office. “We want to ensure that we are minimizing the production and the consumption of these plastic bags, and one of the best ways to do that is to get people to start using reusable bags.”
The ban was originally scheduled to take effect on Jan. 13 following the adoption of the Comprehensive Bag Reduction ordinance approved by city council in late 2019.
Mayor Brandon Scott delayed the implementation of the ban due to the COVID-19 pandemic, first until July, and again until Oct. 1.
“Implementing our plastic bag ban has always been a priority, but with the delay, we have been able to meet residents and retailers where they are and ultimately ensure a positive and successful impact,” Mayor Brandon Scott said in a statement to Baltimore Fishbowl. “Outreach, education, and reusable bag distribution with a focus on equity has been key in this process and we are thrilled to finally have this moment come to fruition.”
Officials from the city’s sustainability office used time during the delayed implementation to reach out to local businesses, residents and community groups about the ban and its goals. They’ve worked with retailers and provided signage for shops to post alerting customers of the new rules.
The city also distributed more than 16,000 reusable bags to low-income residents at community events this summer. Richardson said an additional 10,000 bags will be distributed at more than 30 grocery stores across the city this month.
“We fully understand the reasoning behind the plastic bag ban in Baltimore City, and we will be ready,” said Giant spokesperson Daniel Wolk. “We will gladly abide by this new law and support the initiative to use less plastic in our communities to better serve our environment.”
Unpackaged foods, ice, dry-cleaning and newspapers are among the exceptions to the new ban. Food and goods obtained at farmers’ market are also exempted from the rule.
“There’s a lot being done to try and make people more aware about the impact of their individual habits on climate change and the environment,” said Hampden resident Kerry Holahan. “We can go to a convenience store and get a soda and get a little plastic bag and say ‘Oh, I’m just one person,’ but I really feel like those individual actions really add up,”
The 41-year-old musician has been bringing reusable bags on her grocery excursions for more than a decade. She said she’s excited for the implementation of the ban and to help her friends and neighbors understand the impacts of the change.
“I shop at Aldi pretty frequently, and they don’t provide bags to people. People figure it out; they bring their own bags or they provide those boxes,” she said. “That seems to work. When you go, you know what you’re in for.”
Fines for retailers that do not comply with the new ordinance start at $250. They increase to $500 and $1000 for repeat offenders.
Greg Sawtell works with the South Baltimore Community Land Trust on Zero Waste programs. He said the new rule is a good move as officials look to reduce waste in Baltimore.
“The focus on the plastic bag is a good step for a municipality to take,” Sawtell said. “It does present huge problems for the recycling program because those bags get caught up in machinery and it really messes up the ability to operate a recycling facility.”
Plastic bags are not accepted in Baltimore’s single-stream recycling system because they can jam the sorting machines or contaminate the recycled materials.
“Most of the times it doesn’t have an actual way to be disposed of it’s either burned or buried in a landfill, so it’s really just bad to be producing so much it’s something that you can’t actually get rid of with unless it’s in a very toxic way,” said Shashawnda Campbell.
Campbell was born and raised in South Baltimore and has advocated for environmental justice in the city since high school.
“People don’t know that most of these plastics are not being recycled,” she said. “When you talk about recycling, people assume all of these plastics are being recycled and I say ‘no, no it does not.’ It’s never going to actually be recycled, because it’s not made to be recycled. It’s made for disposal.”
And only about 8.8 percent of all plastics are recycled, she said. More than 90 percent of plastics end up in landfills or are incinerated. According to a report from the South Baltimore Community Land Trust, in Baltimore only about two percent of plastics end up recycled.
Banning single use plastic bags is just one of the strategies the city is implementing to become more sustainable. Richardson also pointed to the new free recycling carts for city residents, and the city’s goals of reducing food waste by 30 percent by 2030.
“We really want to achieve is ensuring that more people are bringing their reusable bags (to shop) and this is one way to help address, or to help reduce waste across the city,” she said.
I totally understand the plastic bag ban. My question is, are places that were previously using paper bags allowed to charge for their paper bags (i.e., fast food chains)?