Glendale keeps putting the squeeze on plastic

GLENDALE — Shoppers will soon be pushed to forsake plastic at Glendale checkout stands after the City Council on Tuesday voted to join a county-wide effort to reduce single-use plastic bag consumption by at least 30% in two years.

If the voluntary program fails to meet the benchmark, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors have left open the option of enforcing an all-out ban as a way to mitigate the damage billions of plastic bags have had on the environment each year, from choking landfills to infiltrating storm water systems.

“I think this is the appropriate thing to do,” Councilman Frank Quintero said.

The “Single-Use Bag Reduction and Recycling Program” calls for programs to increase at-store recycling of single-use plastic bags, promote reusable bags, boost the post-consumer recycled content of paper bags to 40% and increase public awareness of the environmental damage caused by the plastic alternative.

The county Department of Public Works will begin issuing resource packages to grocery chains and pharmacies in the unincorporated areas of the county next week as the program gets underway.

City officials are scheduled to start delivering the same bag-reduction objectives to major stores in Glendale at about the same time.

Glendale’s progress will be measured against its prorated consumption rate of 120 million plastic bags each year, said Paul Alva, senior civil engineer for the county Department of Public Works and manager for the bag-reduction program.

About 6 billion plastic carry-out bags are consumed annually countywide, according to a city report.

While the county Board of Supervisors has the authority to impose an all-out ban should stores in unincorporated areas fail to meet the 30% reduction goal in 2010 — and then 65% in 2013 — incorporated cities like Glendale must decide on their own whether to move in lock step, Alva said.

Some City Council members Tuesday indicated that they would be willing to join a prohibition should the voluntary measures fail.

Councilman Bob Yousefian, who called for the plastic bag report, said he was initially ready to take a harder stand, “but you gotta take the first step.”

Some major grocery chains in Glendale already no longer offer plastic bags or are promoting reusable alternatives. Whole Foods stopped offering plastic bags in April, while stores such as Vons and Ralphs are promoting for-sale reusable bags. Most of the reusable bags, which come in either canvas or recycled synthetic material, cost between 99 cents and $2.

At a Vons store in south Glendale Thursday, Sophie Gonzalez said she was aware of the movement to curb plastic bag use and was reluctantly changing her habits to fit accordingly.

“I think last month I started going with paper, and then I decided to just go all the way and buy some of those reusable (bags),” Gonzalez said as she loaded several Vons canvas bags into her car.

A few of them were plastic.

“I still need some to pick up after my dog,” she said.

Support for the effort to reduce plastic bags has received strong support from city officials who say they are the No. 1 wind-blown trash nuisance in the city and a major headache at the city-operated Scholl Canyon Landfill.

Crews there work around the clock to keep the bags from blowing off site, and even then, the plastic presents its own environmental problems when buried, Public Works Director Steve Zurn said.

Even if crews are able to keep the plastic bags from the storm drain system, and eventually the ocean, toxic chemicals can enter the groundwater supply as the bags degrade over a long period of time, he said.

“We’re hoping this solves the situation,” Zurn said.