N.C. plastic bag ban awaits governor's signature

NAGS HEAD, N.C.

The Outer Banks is set to become the first community on the East Coast to banish those wispy plastic bags.

Gov. Bev Perdue is expected to sign the bill that bans large local retailers from using the ubiquitous bags, spokeswoman Chrissy Pearson said Tuesday. The state Senate passed the bill 44-2 on Monday.

The law would go into effect Sept. 1, right before the last big travel weekend of the summer. It applies only to the barrier islands of Dare, Currituck and Hyde counties.

The brainchild of state Sen. Marc Basnight, a Manteo Democrat and Senate president, the bill outlaws distribution of the bags to customers at retail chains with five or more stores in the state or at stores with 5,000 square feet of retail space or more.

Instead, the retailer can offer 100 percent recycled paper bags, or customers can bring or buy their own reusable bags. Incentives can be offered to those who bring their own bags, including a cash refund, a store coupon or credit, or a reward that's part of a customer loyalty program.

It's the incentive part of the law that bothers Angela Conner Tawes, manager of Conner's Supermarket in Buxton.

"I see that being a disaster in the lines," she said. "It's just too much confusion and headache having to explain it to everyone."

Although Conners is a small family-owned market compared with the big chain stores, it is still larger than 5,000 square feet. Thus the law mandates it cannot use thin plastic except to wrap meat, fish and produce.

Paper bags cost about three times as much as plastic, Tawes said. And paying refunds is "just a reverse tax," she said.

Despite her concerns about the increased expense, Tawes said she believes the ban has merit.

"We're certainly willing to do whatever we can to do to help," she said. "But if it's polluting here, it's polluting everywhere. I'm all for it - let's expand it."

At the Wal-Mart in Kitty Hawk, which uses about 2.5 million to 3 million bags a year, customers have been encouraged to recycle the bags in the store, and reusable bags are sold for 50 cents each, manager Max Dutton said.

Dutton said the ban is a "great concept" and he supports helping the environment. But he said he is concerned about the demand for and availability of the paper bags.

"I'm just trying to find the best deal I can on recycled bags," he said.

Plastic bags are banned in the California cities of San Francisco, Manhattan Beach, Fairfax, Oakland and Palo Alto, said Bryan Early, policy associate for Californians Against Waste, a grassroots environmental group.

San Francisco led the charge, banning the bags in 2007, Early said. To his knowledge, those locations have - so far - been the only ones in the nation to outright ban the bags, he said. Numerous countries, however, have banned the bags.

Philadelphia this month rejected a proposal to outlaw the bags.

Environmentalists say the bags are a major component of litter and can be harmful to wildlife, especially marine life.

Michelle Bogardus, the lead sea turtle biotechnician at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, said the bags are especially hazardous to endangered leatherback sea turtles, which consume only jellyfish.

"They actually think they are jellyfish, so they are intentionally eating it, not knowing it's a plastic bag," she said.

The bags can lodge in the digestive tract of the animals, she said, or twist their intestines.

But Rudy Underwood, director of governmental affairs for the American Chemistry Council, said plastic bags use less energy and less water and create less air emissions than recycled paper, and they are not as bulky when they're thrown away. Plus, he said, plastic bags are a U.S. product.

Underwood also said he has never seen any documentation proving that the plastic bags are harmful to wildlife. "It's an Internet myth," he said.

Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711, cate.kozak@pilotonline.com