Spartan Daily

City of San Jose bans single-use plastic bags, SJSU complies

Retailers in San Jose can no longer offer customers single-use carry out plastic bags and can only sell recycled brown paper bags for $.10 as of Jan. 1 as result of a new city ordinance.

City Councilman Sam Liccardo said the decision made by the city of San Jose was for both environmental and economical reasons.

According to the city ordinance, all paper bags must comprise of at least 40 percent recycled materials. The city still permits plastic and paper bags without handles for items such as produce and meat that could contaminate other food or goods. The new law does not apply to restaurants and non-profits.

“Customers are shocked at first, but then they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s a good idea,’” said Michael Cichocki, a third year business student and a cashier at The Market by Safeway in downtown San Jose. “Customers haven’t really complained.”

“It’s a huge waste to use plastic bags,” said senior humanities major Sam Dwyer, who supports the ban. “It’s not difficult. (The ten cents) is not expensive. If you don’t like it, you can stock up in Los Gatos.”

“I think the ban is a good idea,” said senior finance major Aisha Qasim. In preparation for the law, she said she bought reusable shopping bags.

According to cashier lead and civil engineering student Amel, the Spartan Bookstore hasn’t had any noticeable complaints from stemming from their compliance with the new law.

“We will be selling paper bags for 10 cents,” said bookstore manager Ryland Metzinger.

To avoid customer-student frustration, Spartan Shops will have representatives at its dining locations to tell people about the new city ordinance and answer any questions. They will also give out reusable bags at the informational tables.

“Currently, Just Below and Village Market sell reusable bags, and we’re working on getting them in the other (retail) locations,” said sustainability coordinator Candice Carbonell. 

Carbonell said she is personally glad to see plastic bags out of Spartan Shops but expects some customers won’t be thrilled.

“The waste that single-bags produce is unnecessary,” she said. “Most of the time a plastic bag is used for a few minutes and then thrown away.”

According to the experts, those few minutes have dire impact on the environment, but plastic isn’t the only culprit.

Lynne Trulio, Environmental Science department chair, said both plastic and paper bags have immense impact on the environment.

“Manufacturing impacts from a plastic bag come from petroleum refining while manufacturing a paper bag has a whole host of air, water and energy impacts, which are greater than for manufacturing a single plastic bag,” she said in an email. “However, if paper bags are reused, the impacts of the paper bag relative to a single-use plastic bag are lowered.”

So why keep paper and forgo plastic? Both Carbonell and Trulio noted the impact of plastic on wildlife and landscape that paper doesn't have.

“The fact of the matter is that both of these containers have major impacts on the environment and both should be eliminated," Dr. Trulio said.

Acknowledging this fact, the ordinance states retailers can charge $.25 for a paper bag in 2013.

But according to Liccardo, the cost of single-use bags has always been high.

He said people will grumble about the 10 cent cost, but they don’t realize the cost of higher recycling rates and public resources directed at litter clean up.

“What has happened through this ordinance is we are making these costs more explicit,” he said.

Liccardo said the driving objective came out of a policy direction from several years ago as part of San Jose’s Green Vision, which hopes the city will become zero-waste by 2022. In early 2008, Councilmember Kansen Chu introduced a memo, and the city seriously engaged in looking into the single-use bag policy.

Opponents say the ban oversteps the city’s authority. Liccardo said the city can and should implement the law.

“It’s the city’s responsibility to deal with waste and recycling,” Liccardo said. “We’ve got to find a way to use the scarce landfill space we have in a tactical manner. There are some materials that simply cannot be easily recycled.”

He said the best way to deal with these “toxic and harmful to wildlife” materials is to eliminate them. “It is absolutely the city’s responsibility because not only do we deal with waste and recycling, but we are also responsible for environmental impact,” he said.

The city enlisted advocacy group Save The Bay to help rally support from the environmental community. According to its website, Save The Bay works to “protect, restore and celebrate the San Francisco Bay” through education, restoration and working with policy makers.

According to Liccardo, who called recycling plastic bags a fallacy, one local recycling company stepped up and said recycling plastic bags is costly, time consuming and doesn’t happen as often as it should.

According to the city’s Green Vision, San Jose strives to create a more sustainability community with ambitious goals.

As reported by the San Jose Mercury News, Kerrie Romanow, the city’s acting environmental services director, believes San Jose is the largest city in the U.S. to have a single-use bag ban.

Carbonell said she wants SJSU to emulate the city’s model green streak.

“Since SJSU is a staple of the City of San Jose, it only makes sense that we aim to match sustainability goals," Carbonell said.