Baltimore City Council Further Delays Ban on Plastic Bags

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster):  The Baltimore City Council meeting held Monday delayed action on a proposal to ban single-use plastic shopping bags at retail establishments. The delay is attributed to lack of consensus on fee to be charges for alternative paper bags and also on the fee that retailers should be allowed to retain with them in order to cover the cost of substitute bags.

As per bill proposed by Councilman Bill Henry, retailers will be banned from offering plastic bags to customers. Additionally, it sets a fee of 5 cents per bag for other types of bags offered instead. The current legislation proposes that retailers should keep 1 cent per bag to meet bag expenses. However, some Council members demanded raise in fee up to 10 cents per bag. Also, retailers must be allowed to keep more than 1 cent for every other bag distributed to customers, members said.

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The Baltimore plastic bag ban is aimed at eliminating single-use plastic bags and promote the use of reusable bags for shopping, instead of replacing plastic bags with bags made of paper or alternative materials.

Since 2006, plastic bag ban proposals in Baltimore have failed to pass eight times for various reasons.