MARIN CITIES are on the verge of adopting a plastic bag ban the way it should be implemented — countywide.
Two years ago, county supervisors approved a ban on grocery stores using plastic bags in an effort to get people to, instead, use re-usable bags. The county law followed Fairfax’s 2008 voter-approved ban.
Marin cities have been talking about following their lead, but it had hoped the state Legislature would approve a statewide ban.
Currently, state law only requires grocery stores to provide reusable bags for purchase and have a bin where people can drop their used plastic bags to be recycled.
Nearly 70 cities across California have already banned plastic bags.
Passage of a statewide law has not been a priority in Sacramento. But it is political will in Marin, where many local stores already have stopped using plastic bags and charge a nickel for paper bags.
Implementation of the county’s bag ban, which is in effect only in unincorporated areas, has proved that it can work without businesses losing customers or creating paperwork hassles. But it also created a situation where stores just a short distance apart have to operate under different rules.
The right way to enact this environmental standard is countywide.
The Mill Valley City Council was the first to move ahead with a ban and city officials in San Rafael, Novato and San Anselmo expect to follow suit.
Laws should also be written in a way that can accommodate an environmentally friendly plastic bag, if there is one that is proven to meet that standard.
But right now, many of the bags become litter along our roads and in our creeks. Plastic bags often are found blowing around landfills, where they’ve been dumped and won’t decompose.
A state Coastal Commission study said that plastic bags were a leading source of litter found on our shorelines. Plastic bags also pollute our ocean.
Banning plastic bags is an effective environmental measure that Marin can take without hurting the economy and inconveniencing shoppers. The extra cost in buying a paper bag or a reusable bag should soon be evident when we see fewer bags littering our landscape.