Ask the PAC: California environmental, health officials answer questions on plastic bag ban

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, plastic bags have made a mysterious comeback to many retail stores’ checkout stands, leaving many to wonder what has changed for California’s ban on single-use bags that has been in effect for well over half a decade.

While grocery stores such as Petaluma Market, Whole Foods and Lucky Market continue providing customers with a plethora of paper bag options at checkout, others like Safeway and Target seem to have a dwindling supply.

Toward the start of the pandemic, before more extensive research had been conducted, concern loomed that the COVID-19 virus may have been more easily spread and not easily cleanable on paper and reusable cloth retail bags. But UCSF infectious disease specialist Dr. Peter Chin-Hong said the latest research shows that surfaces don’t pose as much of a threat as air transmission of the virus.

Chin-Hong said studies have shown that the risk of getting COVID-19 from a surface, any surface, on average is less than one in 10,000.

“Science has evolved and unless you have somebody cough or spit on the bags and you lick it and breathe it in vigorously right after, it’s not really going to be an issue,” Chin-Hong said in a phone interview, adding that a person’s vaccination status makes a big difference when it comes to in-store transmission.

So why are shoppers seeing more plastic bag options at the cash register, as opposed to compostable paper bags?

In September 2014, Sonoma County adopted an ordinance that prohibited grocery and large retail stores from providing their customers with bags designed for a single use only, unless the bags were made with recycled paper.

The State of California passed a similar law in November 2016, which was temporarily put on hold after Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on April 22, 2020 to suspend some provisions of the ban, as a cautionary measure to protect front line retail workers in a time of uncertainty. However, the plastic bag ban was reinstated statewide June 22.

Lance Klug, a spokesperson with the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, said California law allows the use of bags made with plastic film provided the bags are made of at least 40% post-consumer recycled material.

Further, the bags must be tested by a third party to ensure they can be reused up to 120 times, said Mark Murray, executive director of the environmental research and advocacy organization Californians Against Waste.

Murray added that, because plastic bags can be used if made from recycled material, stores are not obligated to provide paper bags.

“If people are reusing the thicker plastic bags, and they’re actually treating it like a reusable bag where they’re bringing it back to the store multiple times, then it’s a perfectly satisfactory environmental choice,” Murray said in a phone interview.

However, Murray said that many shoppers are still using those recycled bags as single-use bags, and that stores should do more to promote environmental health.

“It is certainly frustrating that the stores seem to be treating those bags as just a new version of a disposable,” he said.

Wendy Gutshall, a spokesperson for Safeway’s Northern California division, said that the lack of paper bags at Petaluma’s stores during the pandemic had to do with a limited supply.

“We anticipate offering them as an option in these two locations in the coming weeks,” Gutshall said in an emailed statement.

When it comes to enforcement, state officials have left that responsibility in the hands of local jurisdictions. Locally, Zero Waste Sonoma is in charge of overseeing compliance. Though CalRecycle specified that thousands of dollars worth of fines may be involved throughout the state for those stores that do not comply with the single-use plastic bag ban, the primary focus for Zero Waste Sonoma is on educating those businesses.

Zero Waste Sonoma said that, while it is looking into complaints, it has issued no fines to date.

“As we receive complaints about specific stores not in compliance with the carryout bag ordinance, we are contacting those businesses to provide information and let them know about potential penalties for continuing to provide single-use plastic bags and/or not charging customers for paper or reusable bags,” said Sloane Pagal, program manager for Zero Waste Sonoma.

Pagal added that, while enforcement has not been a top priority for county officials during the pandemic, she wants to remind businesses that the ordinance is “indeed in effect” at this time.

Murray said that he hopes that there will be more extended bans in the near future.

“I think we’re going to start seeing a wave of local ordinances that start to put restrictions on plastic produce bags,” Murray said. “I would expect that we would see Sonoma County, along with Bay Area coastal communities, take the lead in going after the single-use plastic bags that were not covered by the original law.”

Amelia Parreira is a staff writer for the Argus-Courier. She can be reached at amelia.parreira@arguscourier.com or 707-521-5208.