Portland Mayor Set to Sign Bill Banning Single-Use Plastic Bags

The mayor of Portland, Ore., Sam Adams, has announced his intention to sign a bill that would ban the use of single-use plastic bags. In a prepared announcement, Adams, says, “When the city of Portland banned polystyrene foam in January 1990, it drew immediate attention from the environmental community and the business world. In response, businesses and customers had to learn a new behavior and they did, adapting to the new policy as cities around the nation took notice.

“According to a poll conducted last week, two-thirds of Portlanders surveyed support banning single-use, carry-out plastic bags and a 5-cent charge on paper bags.

“Today, I’m introducing for public comment a draft ordinance to ban single-use plastic bags in the City of Portland. The ordinance, along with a Frequently Asked Questions document, can be found online at www.mayorsamadams.com/bagban. The ordinance spells out all the important details – which industries are included, when it will go into effect, and what we’re doing to make sure the transition is smooth and successful.

“The four key pillars of the ordinance are:

1. Banning plastic bags, prohibiting large grocery stores and retail pharmacies from distributing single-use plastic carryout bags to their customers at point of sale;

2. Setting a mandatory 5-cent charge on paper/compostable plastic bags, regulating the distribution of paper bags and compostable plastic bags to encourage consumers to use reusable bags, and helping defray the cost to stores;

3. Requiring stores to make reusable bags available, either for purchase or at no cost;

4. Calling for an outreach campaign that includes a public-private partnership to provide reusable carryout bags to interested Portland residents; and working with service providers to distribute information and reusable carryout bags to interested senior and low-income households.

“The policy is a smart, pragmatic approach to a real and seemingly insurmountable problem. It’s an approach shaped by a coalition of businesses, environmental groups and city staff and informed by lessons from cities and nations that have already taken action. Efforts are underway to ban plastic bags statewide in the next legislative session. I support those efforts. Portlanders are prepared to lead the way to a statewide solution.

“In Portland, and in all of Oregon, single-use plastic bags are an eyesore, getting into our waterways and our storm drains. Plastic bags are a nuisance, jamming up recycling facility machines and costing those facilities tens of thousands of dollars a month in maintenance and labor to fix the mess. And plastic bags are an indicator – of an old way of thinking where an item is designed to be used once and live on in a landfill forever.

“But globally, plastic bags are far more than a nuisance or an eyesore. They are part of an environmental crisis – from the oil needed to manufacture and transport bags around the planet – to the massive plastic islands of trash destroying our oceans and intoxicating our marine food web.

“Banning the bag in Portland will not solve all these problems. But failing to ban the bag will only perpetuate the status quo, where Portland is not part of the pollution solution, but part of the problem.

“Portland and Oregon have always led the nation on smart environmental policy. Portland’s economic prosperity is being built on our creativity, our innovation, our expertise in sustainability, and our heritage of great manufacturing. By taking action now, we’re continuing our city’s leadership in sustainable urban living and making an investment in our city’s future.”