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CC 01-15-2013 (2) Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin ■ Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 4:28 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: A vote in favor of Reusable Bags From: AC Klein [mailto:listl@ serendia.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 4:24 PM To: Gilbert Wong Subject: A vote in favor of Reusable Bags Dear Gilbert, Thank you for speaking last night at the Hsinchu sister city student exchange meeting! It was wonderful to hear your input. My child is applying this year and I have my fingers crossed... but that's not why I wanted to reach out to you. I am wholeheartedly in favor of banning single use plastic carryout bags. I do a lot of walking around the Monta Vista neighborhood, where my family has lived for 20 years, and I just can't stand seeing bags drifted up on the sides of the percolation pond at McClellan and Bubb, or caught in the manzanitas at Linda Vista park, or washed up on the shore at Blackberry Farm. I pick them up whenever I can, but they are an environmental hazard, a health risk to birds and other creatures, and they look awful just discarded on the ground in our beautiful city. I've been using reusable bags for years now-- including a green City of Cupertino bag I got at one of our environmental days a few years back -- and it's very easy and very convenient. Please do help with banning single use plastic carryout bags in Cupertino! Thank you so much, Anne Cesa Klein 1 Brittany Morales _ CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 3:26 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Views regarding the Plastic bag ban proposal From: kinjal buch [mailto:kinjalbuch@yahoo.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 3:25 PM To: Gilbert Wong Subject: Views regarding the Plastic bag ban proposal Hi Gilbert, Wish you a Very Happy New Year! Tonight's council meeting has the all important item on the agerd - ban of plastic bag. While I am all for it, I have a few concerns which I would like to express. I really wish that the council allows use of reusable plastic(thicker than the grocery bags, similar to ones carried by The Container Store at Santan Row) or paper bags at Department stores such as Macy's, Sears and JCP without forcing them to charge the customers as it is cumbersome to carry boxed items purchased at these stores. While most of the residents do have shopping bags to carry grocery at home, they may not 'De large enough to carry the boxed items and that too without availability of shopping carts at most places. I have myself faced a situation where my shopping bag was not clean enough to carry clothing items purchased at the stores. Please consider making this exception in your ordinance. Moreover, in a city like Cupertino, where more than 80% of residents are highly educated, it may be a better idea to educate them to recycle plastic bags rather than imposing a complete ban. Aferall, we have a very aggressive recycling program. Thanks, Kinjal 1 Brittany Morales _ CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 3:18 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Reusable Bag Ordinance Attachments: Reusable Bag Ordinance Letter.doc From: Mark Matsumoto [mailto:markm @cupertino-chamber.org] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 3:17 PM • To: Orrin Mahoney; Rod Sinks; Barry Chang; Mark Santoro; Gilbert Wong Cc: David Brandt; Rick Kitson; Carol Korade; Timm Borden; Grace Schmidt Subject: Re: Reusable Bag Ordinance Dear Mayor Mahoney and Cupertino City Councilmembers, The Cupertino Chamber of Commerce would like to submit the attached document for tonight's City Council meeting (Item #15). The letter addresses the Reusable Bag Ordinance and highlights our concerns the current draft ordinance poses for businesses in Cupertino. Thank you for taking the time to consider our comments. Best Regards, Mark Matsumoto Mark Matsumoto, Government Affairs Specialist Cupertino Chamber of Commerce markm(c�cupertino-chamber.orq (408)252-7054 x14 20455 Silverado Ave Cupertino, CA 95014 APlease consider the environment before printing this email 1 January 15,2013 C• Mayor Mahoney and Cupertino City Council Cupertino Chamber of Commerce 10300 Torre Avenue Your Partner In Silicon Valley Cupertino,CA 95014 Cupertino Chamber of Re:Reusable Bag Ordinance Commerce 20455 Silverado Avenue Cupertino,CA 95014 Dear Mayor Mahoney and Cupertino Councilmembers, Tel(40 ) 252-7054 Fax(408)252-0638 I am writing to express our concerns about the City of Cupertino's proposed Reusable Bag www.cupertino-chamber.org Ordinance.We respectfully request that the City Council postpone a final decision on this item until the following points are addressed: 1)the Water Board approves a tracking method for litter 2013 Board of Directors reduction;2)the business community is provided with adequate time to understand record Board Officers keeping requirements and enforcement procedures;and 3)the ordinance more closely resembles Kevin McClelland,President San Jose and Sunnyvale's treatment of reusable bags. Leeward Financial&Insurance Services Inc. As mentioned in the City Staff Report,the tracking method used by the Water Board to calculate the percentage of reduction achieved by specific litter control measures has not been finalized. We John Zirelli,Past President urge the Council to postpone making a final decision on an ordinance until we have assurances Recology South Bay from the Water Board that the specific measures we adopt will help achieve our mandated litter reduction targets. Mike Rohde,VP Special Events Vatico Shopping Mall Given that the draft Reusable Bag Ordinance was released last week,we would also like to request additional time to analyze the impact of record keeping requirements and enforcement procedures Rashel Yadegari,VP Membership this ordinance imposes.Based off of our initial review of the ordinance,we believe that tracking the Development P First Tech Federal Credit Union purchase and sale of recycled paper bags and reusable bags for at least three years will be a complex and costly procedure for businesses to implement.We encourage the City to provide Matt Wheeler,VP Finance businesses with alternative methods of meeting this requirement and/or lessening the number of LMGW Public Accounts years such records need to be saved. • Richard Abdalah,VP LAC The Chamber would also like to request additional clarification on the ordinance's enforcement Abdalah Law Offices procedures. We hope the City's general enforcement approach will be to provide retailers with ample opportunity to comply with the ordinance.Thus,we urge the City to reconsider Barbara Perzigian,VP Community administering a$100 fine for the first citation.In addition,we hope the City can clarify the fine Relations schedule for a business that has been found out of compliance for a period of time.If the offense is Cupertino Inn the result of miscommunication or confusion,and not willful negligence,we hope that a business will not be subject to a citation for each day it has been out of compliance. Sandy James,VP HR&Staffing Lehigh Cement Company Our last area of concern is ensuring that Cupertino's ordinance more closely resembles those of San Jose and Sunnyvale.We applaud Cupertino for joining in a regional effort,however the current Board Members draft ordinance differs from San Jose and Sunnyvale in one key area:it imposes a fee and record Janice Chua keeping requirements for reusable bags.San Jose and Sunnyvale do not require record keeping for, Bitter+Sweet nor do they place a fee on bags defined as reusable.We urge the Council to consider exempting Yogi Chugh reusable bags from requiring a 10 cent charge and record keeping requirements. State Farm Insurance Art Cohen While we prefer that reusable bags be entirely exempt from the 10 cent fee,we understand staff BlueLight Cinemas 5 wants to prevent regrettable substitution as retailers move to only slightly thicker plastic bags. Mike Foulkes One way of addressing this problem,while staying true to the spirit of San Mateo's EIR,is to only Apple Inc. charge the fee on reusable bags thinner than 3 millimeters thick. This solution eliminates the Scott Jeng regrettable substitution issue and helps the City achieve its goal of making sure residents have HSBC Bank USA,N A. access to reusable bags. Please see Attachment A for proposed amendments. Mahesh Nihalani Jewels in Style Thank you for taking the time to consider our comments. Tamon Norimoto PG&E Best regards, Darcy Paul Law Offices of Darcy August Paul Maria Streeby The e Cypress Hotel Keith Warner Pacific Business Centers Kevin McClelland 2013 President Keiichiro Yoshida Bay Club Silicon Valley Cupertino Chamber of Commerce CC: David Brandt,Rick Kitson,Carol Korade,Timm Borden,Grace Schmidt Attachment A Amend Section 9.17.130 to read as follows: 9.17.130 Single-use carryout bag A.No person or retail establishment shall provide a single rise carryout bag to a customer, at the check stand, cash register,point of sale or other point of departure for the purpose of transporting food or merchandise out of the establishment except as provided in this section or in section 9.17.140. B. Effective October 1,2013 a retail establishment may only make recycled paper bags or plastic reusable bags less than 3 millimeters thick available to customers if the retailer charges a minimum of ten cents. C. Effective January 1,2015 a retail establishment may only make recycled paper bags or plastic reusable bags less than 3 millimeters thick available to customers if the retailer charges a minimum of twenty five cents. D.Notwithstanding this section,no retail establishment may make available for sale a recycled paper bag or a plastic reusable bag less than 3 millimeters thick unless the amount of the sale of such bag is separately itemized on the sale receipt. E. A retail establishment may provide one or more recycled paper bags at no cost to any of the following individuals: a customer participating in the California Special Supplement Food Program for Women, Infants,and Children pursuant to Article 2(commencing with Section 123275)of Chapter 1 of Part 2 of Division 106 of the Health and Safety Code;a customer participating in the Supplemental Food Program pursuant to Chapter 10(commencing with Section 15500)of Part 3 of Division 9 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code;and a customer participating in Calfresh pursuant to Chapter 10(commencing with Section 18900)of Part 6 of Division 9 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code. - 2 - Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 1:09 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Please ban plastic Original Message From: Steve Robie [mailto:sbrobie @comcast.net] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 12:25 PM To: City Council Subject: Please ban plastic Dear City Council, My name is Steve Robie. I am a 20+year Cupertino resident. I am writing to ask you to ban plastic bags. We have long ago switched over to fabric bags with little impact on our family. We have also seen the impact of plastic bags in the environment. Please help my son have a cleaner, more environmentally sustainable future by ending the use of plastic bags. Sincerely, Stephen B. Robie, Ph.D. 20325 Via Volante Cupertino, CA Sent from my iPhone 1 • Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 8:27 AM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Regarding Ordinance No. 13 Attachments: Letter Regarding Ordiance No. 13.pdf; Signatures in Support of the Proposed Cupertino Plastic Bag Regulation.pdf From: Monta Vista GYA [mailto:mvhsgva(agmail.com] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 9:48 PM To: City Council Subject: Regarding Ordinance No. 13 Esteemed councilmembers: Cupertino is a city of innovation. It is home to the world largest corporation. It is at the heart of the Silicon Valley. And it has some of the best schools in the country. It is only fitting, therefore,that Cupertino be a part of the cities and counties leading not only our state, but our entire country as well, in an effort to reduce human impact on the environment. The Monta Vista Sierra Club,along with the following Cupertino residents,strongly supports proposed Ordinance No. 13,to regulate single-use plastic bags. Following the legislative example of our neighboring city of San Jose and the County of San Mateo,this ordinance will allow our city to: 1. (1) Reduce littering in public areas 2. (2) Protect marine life along our state's coast 3. (3) Reduce unnecessary wastefulness As I stated before,the passage of this bill is not only a way of improving our public areas and our environment, it is also to continue Cupertino's role in the Bay Area, as a leader for the rest of the state, and eventually the rest of the nation. Therefore,on behalf of the Monta Vista Sierra Club, and the supporting Cupertino residents, I urge this council to make this ordinance into law with all possible speed. Regards, Mihir Patil Co-President The Sierra Club Monta Vista High School The Sierra Club At Monta Vista High School 1 The Sierra Club yl At Monta Vista High School n ^ E-Mail: mvhsgya @gmail.com SIERRA Web mvsierraclub weebly.com CLUB Fr/UNDID IR92 January 14, 2013 City Council of Cupertino 10300 Torre Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014 Esteemed councilmembers: Cupertino is a city of innovation. It is home to the world largest corporation. It is at the heart of the Silicon Valley. And it has some of the best schools in the country. It is only fitting,therefore,that Cupertino be a part of the cities and counties leading not only our state, but our entire country as well, in an effort to reduce human impact on the environment. The Monta Vista Sierra Club, along with the following Cupertino residents, strongly supports proposed Ordinance No. 13,to regulate single-use plastic bags. Following the legislative example of our neighboring city of San Jose and the County of San Mateo, this ordinance will allow our city to: (1) Reduce littering in public areas (2) Protect marine life along our state's coast (3) Reduce unnecessary wastefulness As I stated before, the passage of this bill is not only a way of improving our public areas and our environment, it is also to continue Cupertino's role in the Bay Area, as a leader for the rest of the state, and eventually the rest of the nation. Therefore, on behalf of the Monta Vista Sierra Club, and the supporting Cupertino residents, I urge this council to make this ordinance into law with all possible speed. Regards, Mihir Patil Co-President The Sierra Club Monta Vista High School mvhsgya @grnail.com Signatures in Support of the Proposed Cupertino Plastic Bag Regulation Divya Ramani Ramesh Kurnool Ramani Narayan Danny Kim Sheela Raman Tanvee Sinha Ria Ramani Namrata Ramani Vijaya Narayan Jamie Wong Aditya Iyer Ankita Tejwani Simran Devidasani Rochish Ambati Shreya Atitkar Rizwanulla Mohammed Mihir Patil Diana Lee Anika Krishnan Benjamin Hendel Nicole stomakhin Ankush Prakash Bryan Zhao Sacheth Hegde Danica Mavroudis William Zhang Vincent Wang Phanender Yedla Romir Maheshwary Abha Yuna Lee Monisha Gopalakrishnan Aafreen Mahmood Aykezar Adil Sarika Patel Anupama Cemballi Aditya Kuroodi Aditi Gupta Srikrishna Vangipuram Xijing Zhang Suresh Emily Chi Ashwin Ramanathan Vikrant Marathe Srisruthi Ramesh Vamshi Renduchintala Johnathan Ho Athira Penghat Vinay Kowshik Aruna Sridharan Ashley Ding Miki Rai Jinsu Choi Elizabeth Zhang Yimeng Han Kadhir Manickam Aahana Sahai Athreya Alur Angela Zhao Muthu Kumar Veeravel Eva Spitzen Murugan Rohan Yelsangikar Prashanth Swaminathan Smitha Gundavajhala Diana Liu Soumya Kurnool Alma Niu Danielle Sigura Sriya Srinath Alice Zhou Akash Mohanan Soujanya Kondameedi Rachael Mathew Katherine Alexander Anushka Varhadkar Linnea Lynch Guhan Venkataraman Aleksandra Niewczas Sahil Gandhi Jessica Angell Nish Ullagaddi Megan Fernandez Diane Chong Rosy Mqquin Hadar Sachs Calley Wang Amrutha Dorai Abhishek Nair Hita Bhagat Cynthia Jung Shantanu Phadke Arnon Karnkaeng Constance Robinson Sabir Saluja Ashish Tare Alexander Vu Maya Nyayapati Karuna Sangam Sharon Yang Yashashree Pisolkar Aditya Subramanian Elma Avakian Lillie Oravetz Nirupama Cemballi Jasmine Tsai Anya Mathur Akshay Rama Siddharth Manoj Riyana Patel Sachi Bansal Rajeshwari Elangovan Ryan Louie Anshul Ramachandran Brittany Morales _ CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 11:13 AM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Letter of Support for Cupertino Adopting San Mateo County Reusable Bag Ordinance Attachments: Cupertino Ordinance_Support_January 2013.pdf From: Brad Hunt [mailto:brad @saveourshores.orq] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 11:11 AM To: City Council Cc: Cheri Donnelly; Kathryn Cooke Subject: Letter of Support for Cupertino Adopting San Mateo County Reusable Bag Ordinance Dear Mayor Mahoney and Councilmembers, Please see the attached letter of support from Heal the Bay for adoption of the San Mateo Regional Resuable bag Ordinance by the City of Cupertino. Thank you for your consideration. Best regards, Brad Hunt Program Manager Education Coordinator Save Our Shores 345 Lake Avenue, Suite A Santa Cruz, CA 95062 831.462.5660 ext. 5 Fax: 831.462.6070 http://saveourshores.orq 1 1444 9th Street ph 310 451 1550 info©healthebay.org Santa Monica CA 90401 fax 310 496 1902 www.healthebay.org Heal the Bay January 15, 2013 Cupertino City Council 10300 Torre Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014 RE: Letter of Support for Single-Use Bag Reduction Ordinance Dear Mayor Mahoney and Councilmembers, On behalf of Heal the Bay and its members, we are writing to urge you to adopt the San Mateo County's reusable bag ordinance. Plastic is not biodegradable, rarely recycled, and is a product of mere convenience. In a marine and an estuarine environment like the San Francisco Bay, plastic threatens wildlife and pollutes waterways, wetlands, and beaches. Banning single-use plastic bags will help preserve the integrity of local ecosystems, reduce the burden on landfills, reduce litter in our communities, save taxpayer dollars, and help Cupertino meet the trash reduction requirements in the Regional Water Board's stormwater permit. Californians use an estimated 12 billion single-use plastic bags every year.' Despite both voluntary and statewide efforts to implement recycling programs, the statewide recycling rate for plastic bags remains around five percent;2 the majority of single-use plastic bags—even if reused once or twice by consumers—end up in our landfills or as part of the litter stream, polluting our inland and coastal communities and wasting taxpayer dollars on cleanup costs. This is an issue that extends beyond coastal communities. Designed only for single-use, plastic bags have a high propensity to become litter and eventually marine debris by traveling through storm drains and rivers. In fact, one characterization study of urban litter in storm drains and the Los Angeles River estimated that plastic bag litter rnakes up as much as 25%of the litter stream.3 Once this plastic debris, including plastic bags, reaches aquatic environments, it may choke and starve wildlife, distribute non-native and potentially harmful organisms, adsorb toxic chemicals and degrade to smaller pieces that may be subsequently ingested.4 Given the scope and nature of this problem, any lasting solution must be addressed by both inland and coastal communities. Plastic bag litter blights inland urban areas, and is costly to clean-up. California spends approximately$25 million annually to landfill plastic bag waste.5 These cleanup costs do not t "Shopping?Take Reusable Bags!"CalRecycle.23 Nov.2011.Web.7 Jan.2013. <hup://mAkwv.calrecvcle.ca.uov/publiced/holidays,ReusableBags.htm:>. 2 County of Los Angeles.Dept.of Public Works.Los Angeles County Plastic Bag Study:Staff Report to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.Aug.2007:2.Print. 3 County of Los Angeles.Dept.of Public Works. Los Angeles County Plastic Bag Study:Staff Report to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.Aug.2007:24.Print. 4 Barnes D.K.A.,Galgani F.,Thompson R.C.,Barlaz M."Accumulation and fragmentation of plastic debris in global environments."Phil. Trans. R.Soc.B 364(2009): 1985-1998.Print. 5 "Shopping?Take Reusable Bags!"CalRecycle.23 Nov.2011.Web.7 Dec.2012. <httpJ/wx%a.calreo cle.ca.uov ipubliced iholidaVs/Reusablcl3ags.htm:>. 1 1444 9th Street ph 310 451 1550 info@healthebay.org P4tP Santa Monica CA 90401 fax 310 496 1902 www.healthebay.org Heal the Bay reflect the energy costs associated with producing single-use bags, or the negative socio- economic and environmental costs associated with single-use bag litter. Ultimately, the costs to cleanup plastic bag waste are borne by taxpayers, and during a time of tight budgets,this money could be allocated to fund vital public services. Over 100 jurisdictions in California have adopted or are considering a single-use bag ordinance, including inland communities like Colma, Chico, Culver City, Pasadena, Ukiah and Watsonville. Many of these ordinances have changed consumer behavior and have resulted in an increased use of reusable bags, a more sustainable alternative to single-use bags. For example, L.A. County announced that its ordinance which bans plastic carryout bags and charges for paper carryout bags, and became fully effective in 2012, has resulted in a 94%reduction in overall single-use bag usage(both plastic and paper).6 Furthermore, single-use bag ordinances are effective in reducing plastic pollution. Since January 2012, the City of San Jose has prohibited distribution of all single-use bags except for recycled content paper bags, which consumers must purchase for 10 cents. The City's 2012 litter surveys indicate that plastic bag litter has been reduced "approximately'89 percent in the storm drain system . . . when compared to [pre-ordinance] data ,,7 The County of San Mateo's regional ban allows the 18 cities in San Mateo and 6 in Santa Clara to easily adopt a consistent ban along the peninsula, and such a ban is a major step in reducing the economic waste and environmental impacts that single-use bags create. For these reasons, we urge you to adopt the County of San Mateo's comprehensive single-use carryout bag ordinance for the City of Cupertino. Thank you for your leadership on this critical environmental issue. • Sincerely, Sarah Sikich, Coastal Resources Director Kathryn Benz, Policy Analyst 6"About the Bag."Los Angeles County.Web.7 Dec.2012. http://dpm.lacounty Jim!epd/aboutthehas/. 7 Kerrie Romanow,City of San Jose,memorandum to Transportation&Environment Corn.re:Bring Your Own Bag Ordinance Implementation Results and Actions to Reduce EPS Foam Food Ware, 20 Nov.2012. Web.7 Jan.2013. <http:l/www3.sanjoseca.gov/clerk/CommitteeAgenda/I E/20121203/TE20121203_d5.pdf>. 2 Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 8:32 AM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Polystyrene Food service Issue Attachments: ACC Letter to Cupertino.pdf From: Kenny, Ryan [mailto:Ryan Kenny@americanchemistry corn] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 5:47 PM To: City Council Subject: Re: Polystyrene Food service Issue Dear Honorable Members of the Cupertino City Council, With the polystyrene food service issue being discussed at Tuesday night's city council meeting, I would like to take this opportunity to forward the letter we sent ahead of the August study session and offer a reminder to the reasons against a ban.As you know, this is a complicated issue,and we believe a ban will not result in the reduction of litter because one food service material will be merely switched for another. Your consideration of our views would be very much appreciated. Thank you, Ryan Kenny Manager, State Affairs American Chemistry Council 1121 L Street, Suite 609 Sacramento, CA 95814 Phone (916)448-2581 Fax (916)442-2449 Cell (916)606-5772 www.americanchemistry.com +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ This message may contain confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee do not disseminate, distribute or copy this email. Please notify the sender immediately by email if you have received this email by mistake and delete this email from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message which arise as a result of email transmission. American Chemistry Council, 700—2nd Street NE, Washington, DC 20002, www.americanchemistry.com American Plastics Division Chemistry Council • July 30, 2012 The Honorable Mark Santoro Mayor, City of Cupertino 10300 Torre Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014-3202 Subject: POLYSTYRENE FOODSERVICE BAN—OPPOSE Dear Mayor Santoro: The Plastics Foodservice Packaging Group (PFPG), of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) is opposed to the prohibition of polystyrene food service products. Though we certainly support the city of Cupertino's intent to reduce litter and disposal from take-out food packaging, we believe the better policy approach would be to establish a clear recycling and composting standard by which ALL material types must meet. Banning polystyrene foam containers — without imposing any type of regulatory standard on likely replacements — assumes these alternative products are environmentally preferable. This assumption is unfounded and incorrect. It is also important to note the purported credits municipalities would receive — including a 2-8% credit for a polystyrene food service ban - have not vet been formally adopted by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board and it remains questionable whether they will. Please consider the following: • On February 1, 2012 the Bay Area Stormwater Management Agencies Association (BASMAA) submitted a report that among other things proposed individual"credits"toward overall trash reduction loads if localities adopted bans on polystyrene food containers; • Staff at the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board then solicited public comments on this document. Many stakeholders submitted written comments expressing concern over the methodology used in establishing the proposed credits. Attached separately for your reference are comment letters from ACC and San Francisco Baykeeper; • On June 7 Board staff responded to the BASMAA proposal with a letter(attached separately) that stated in part on page 6, "The proposed load reduction credits are in a reasonable range...However, verification and reporting of implementation and enforcement is missing." While staff provided this approval for the ban credits, at the subsequent Board meeting two members voiced serious concerns about them. Ultimately, rather than approve the staff position the Board voted to direct staff to bring the matter back at a later time for consideration and possibly conduct a workshop on the proposal. Given that the "credit" issue has not yet been finalized, at a minimum, the Cupertino City Council should consider the possibility the city will not receive credit in the stormwater permit for a ban on polystyrene food service products. It is also worth noting several independent studies have demonstrated that such a proposal could have significant negative environmental impacts because alternatives such as coated bleached paperboard americanchemistrv.com 1300Wil.;onEnulcvard,Arlingron 5 ,VA22204I (703)741 5000 11I and"compostables"generate significantly more greenhouse gas emissions, use more energy and generate more solid waste.',2,3. All products take raw materials and use energy to manufacture and have associated emissions (air, water, solid waste) and energy impacts. Many life cycle studies have been conducted for polystyrene foam foodservice products and their substitutes and alternatives. For example, the City of Seattle, Washington's own independent analysis4 of a polystyrene foam (EPS) ban concluded the following impacts would occur: • Non-renewable energy would increase 214% • Greenhouse gas(GHG)emissions would increase 234% • Ozone would increase 134% • Acidification would increase by 179% • Eutrophication would increase by 104% • Waste generated would increase by 240%. Also, after the City of San Francisco banned polystyrene containers, a 2008 litter audit found a 36% reduction in polystyrene litter was offset by an increase of the same percentage of coated paperboard on an item by item basis. It is also important to note that neither coated paperboard nor any compostable foodservice "biodegrade"if littered. In addition, despite claims to the contrary, compostable alternatives cost on average two times more than polystyrene foam foodservice. This financial impact would be more severe on small restaurants and vendors.5 For your reference we have attached a chart comparing prices of various common polystyrene food service products to alternatives at a popular restaurant industry wholesaler — Restaurant Depot in San Jose. We encourage the Cupertino City Council to instead work with industry, restaurants, recyclers and other stakeholders to develop a takeout food packaging ordinance that sets a recycling and composting benchmark by which all material types must then meet. Thank you for taking the time to consider our views. If you have any questions or comments, including the forwarding of the documents mentioned in this letter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Sincerely, • Ryan Kenny Manager, State Affairs American Chemistry Council 1 Final Peer-Reviewed Report:Life Cycle Inventory of Polystyrene Foam,Bleached Paperboard and Corrugated Paper Foodservice Products,Franklin Associates,Ltd.,prepared for Polystyrene Packagiig Council,March 2006, http://www.p lasticsfoodservicepackaging.org 2 Paper or Styrofoam,A Review of the Environmental Effects of Disposable Cups,University of California at San Diego(UCSD), Dec 2006 3 Life Cycle Inventory of Foam and Coated Paperboard Plates,Peer-Reviewed Final Report,prepared for Pactiv Corporation, Franklin Associates,Ltd.,May 2008 'Alternative to Disposable Shopping Bags and Food Service Items Volume I,prepared for Seattle Public Utilities,January 2008, Herrera Environmental Consultants 5 Polystyrene&Replacement Costs,MB Public Affairs, prepared for Polystyrene Packaging Council, March 2,2006 americanchemistry.com c l300 Wilson Coulcvaril,Ariingrou,VA2221)9I(703)74I.i1A10 r 1 1 1 1 Restaurant Depot, San Jose CA 06/13/12 r t ..mom . v`" . f�` t t < r�$ - t e 'fK fir•r:r r, "�"�+"'4.4 'o t! s a'' E• vci ,: �s#ti}, f ,s„' Re! f: I •1 i3 Z t a f G x k s � d sl , b -,y M'4a41]�• ` s4` 1:: z I� � \ It ill F�' 4 '�al.' 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Cash & Carry Smart Foodserrvice, San Jose CA 06/13/12 • kg,i: --: u-5 �{jp"e, �' "r s d ,/{ k rfiA 1r A ro, d a ta , vj .R {a t F h P r' iR� :i,3 z t r t ri1 a t...--rte, S L _9 1-N F. 4. - #'i rr1`,,ii,?c -Tr"s-I i�' F/ F „. t IQx�: �. t a Mi tdr f + ainiiii ,, � a. { { r ti ,t it t X4; i m# Y 1 •97 - f t Jr z `-,- ,5 ( irr r r t � t F�r. :k$2 77 r rr -t` f F� •. ' {: IraJUIIIII�I�I! - BOr 7 r, sr�:Y<ts *- � ��e'rS ' (uv u u E r 01f ° x 0Y r ,. , t'� ^>z” 'ra� �F/SfoAMCUP17 � i , ty , . r [1552'43 1 3 r � . : r . G � : `Y .ttl: ..;..1.,.:L.,..:.=..,....;..1.,.:L.,..:...;..1.,.:L.,..:.=..,..:-..a........,— . ..a_ - 12 oz Paper Hot Cup$52.63 for 1000 12 oz Foam Cup $31.13 for 1000 $52.63 -$31.13 = $21.50 increase for a 12 oz cup This is a 69% increase ! 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'',-.'.. .1v4.11,--,,A-e- ,,..,_,.•••,•,•,,..,,,,,,;•.;:px, ,,,-;-',34:::s›, ,,q,,._W.1 .,-.'f.,4.5.,;-...- ..fiii;cr,.i',. ..01, ;',.;.:■:?.,.,'.:,'..;'?"''.:"7;'Y,V:',147:,-'WieC.',"!.:ttif.r-k-i? ..". '%'' '..;-,1, ,:-,-,,,i,...',::..ii.';-','..',..V',": i'.,i,',.if-';',A;:-;;I:T.,'''''-':.:..'..._•,..,'..'ci,'----‘-i-7'--:.:■,';; ;,..:;.-';, ....,_ _.. „ . ',',';.";'.'' ''' 500 f';',..':::,•.,,..:',..:/,,,.., .";;-....,:).,'.,,,',,-..1.1,,,,.,-. 9" Foam . „. .. Plate $ 9" Pulp Plate $32.67 for 500 16 67 for 5 . $32.67 -$16.67 =$16.00 increase . for a 9" Plate • This is a 95%0 increase Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 8:49 AM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: single-use bag ban From: AnneNg(aaol.com [mailto:AnneNg(aaol.com] Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2013 8:25 PM To: City Council Subject: single-use bag ban Honorable Councilmembers: Please vote for the single-use bag ban. Single-use bags squander natural resources, and consume energy in their production, even if they're made of recycled materials. Best case they are reused or recycled after use, but that happens too infrequently. Next best case, they end up in landfills. Worst but unfortunately much too common case, they end up blowing around the planet, clogging creeks and rivers and ending up in oceanic garbage patches, killing wildlife on the way. At least paper bags decompose. Not plastic. I regularly walk to the Safeway 1/4 mile from my front door, across the street in San Jose at Bollinger and Miller. The world did not end when San Jose enacted its ban. I was impressed at how quickly folks adjusted. It took a few months to get into the habit, but now folks routinely plunk their reusable bags on the checkout conveyor belt along with their groceries. It works just fine. Thanks, Anne Ng 6031 Bollinger Road Brittany Morales _ CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 8:50 AM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Cupertino bag ban From: Lynda Sayre [mailto:lyndasayre(@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2013 7:47 AM To: City Council Cc: Cheri Donnelly; Kathryn Cooke Subject: Cupertino bag ban Dear Sirs, Thank you for considering a ban on plastic bags in Cupertino and joining the hundreds of other cities and counties throughout the state who are helping us all to keep our roads and beaches free of plastic trash. More and more people are using re-usable cloth bags as a way to minimize trash, and to avoid using paper or plastic. Please vote yes on this important measure. Sincerely, Lynda Sayre 1 Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Rachael Gibson [rgibson@valleywater.org] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 5:49 PM To: Cupertino City Manager's Office; City Clerk Subject: Letter from SCVWD Board of Directors re Item 15 Attachments: SKONICA BH713011115050.pdf Good evening Mr. Brandt and Ms. Schmidt, Please find attached a copy of the letter that our Board Chair, Nai Hsueh, sent to Mayor Mahoney late Friday regarding Item 15 on tomorrow's agenda (the proposed reusable bag ordinance). I would be grateful if you would distribute it to your City Councilmembers in advance of the meeting. Thank you! Sincerely, ckae[Gi6son Office of Government Relations Santa Clara Valley Water District Office (direct): 408-630-2884 Blackberry: 408-841-6819 www.valleywater.org 1 Santo •to •tt ;� ti x� r1 M , ',, ,_, . ,,.,Woken DISkt�ck r� . .•3�ra tt> ',_2,..,-e,2:::„.,:-1.:_-....-.,...,, z„ Uz 1 5750 ALMADEN EXPWY ? � g a M SAN JOSE,CA 951 18.3686 4i � w o-` .r .4; 14 ,r $ TELEPHONE(408)265-2600 FACSIMILE(408)266-0271 www.valleywater.org AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER BOARD OF DIRECTORS VACANT DISTRICT 1 BARBARA F.KEEGAN DISTRICT 2 RICHARD P.SANTOS January 11, 2013 DISTRICT 3 LINDA J.LEZOTTE DISTRICT 4 NAI HSUEH CHAIR,DISTRICT 5 TONY ESTREMERA The Honorable Orrin Mahoney VICE CHAIR,DISTRICT 6 Mayor of Cupertino DISTRICT 7MIDT 10300 Torre Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014-3202 BEAU GOLDIE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER MICHELE L.KING,CMC Dear Mayor Mahoney: CLERK OF THE BOARD I understand that on January 15, 2013, the City Council will hold a public hearing on the single-use carry out bag draft ordinance. On behalf of the Santa Clara Valley Water District's (District) Board of Directors, I encourage your council to adopt the ordinance. As you are aware, one of the District's water resources stewardship goals is to promote the protection of creeks, bay and other aquatic ecosystems from threats of pollution and degradation. In line with our Board's Governance Policies, and through the District's legislative guiding principles, the District supports legislative efforts to eliminate or reduce the waste stream entering our waterways. In recent years, single-use plastic bags have been a significant source of debris found in the County's waterways during trash clean up days. Plastic bags were reported as one of the top three items picked up by 28% of the volunteers at Coastal Clean Up Day in September 2012. Environmental organizations also are particularly concerned about the impacts that single-use plastic bags pose to the environment. They note that single-use plastic bags, being lightweight, often blow into gutters where they flow into creeks and storm drains and then into the Bay and the ocean, where they contribute to marine debris and threaten wildlife that mistake the bags for food. On November 23, 2010, the District's Board of Directors took a formal position to support ordinances banning single-use plastic bags. Consequently, we encourage you to move forward with enacting this ordinance. It is these kinds of ordinances that help enhance local quality of life through the protection and enhancement of watersheds, streams, and natural resources. If you have any questions, or need additional information, please contact Mr. Tom Martinez of Government Relations. He can be reached at tmartinez @valleywater.org or(916)448-8497. Thank you for your consideration of this important request. Sincerely, " Nai Hsueh Chair/Board of Directors cc: Board of Directors (7), B. Goldie ct:fd 0111 a-I.docx The mission of the Santa Clara Valley Water District is a healthy,safe and enhanced quality of living in Santa Clara County through watershed 0 stewardship and comprehensive management of water resources in a practical,cost-effective and environmentally sensitive manner. Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 3:43 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Item 15 - Reusable Bag Ordinance and Polystyrene Ordinance-Support Attachments: CAW_LetterOfSupport_Cupertino.pdf From: Sue yang [mailto:suevang @cawrecycles.orq] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 3:29 PM To: City Council Subject: Item 15 - Reusable Bag Ordinance and Polystyrene Ordinance - Support Dear Honorable Mayor Mahoney, On behalf of Californians Against Waste--one of the nation's leading nonprofit research and advocacy organizations focused on waste reduction and recycling--I respectfully submit a letter in support of a Reusable Bag Ordinance and an Expanded Polystyrene Container Ordinance. Thank you for your environmental leadership on these issues. We have worked extensively on local plastic pollution ordinances--please let us know if we can assist in any way. Sincerely, Sue Vang Policy Associate ( Californians Against Waste 921 11th Street, Suite 420 I Sacramento, CA 95814 (p) 916-443-5422 I (f) 916-443-3912 www.cawrecvcles.org Get updates and support us on Facebook,Twitter, or Causes! 1 Californians Against Waste } Conserving Resources. Preventing Pollution. Protecting the Environment. January 14, 2013 Mayor Orrin Mahoney City of Cupertino 10300 Torre Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014-3202 Re: Item 15,Reusable Bag Ordinance and Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) Ordinance—Support Dear Honorable Mayor Mahoney, Californians Against Waste (CAW) respectfully urges the City of Cupertino to take action against two costly, environmentally damaging, and easily preventable sources of litter and pollution: single-use plastic bags and disposable food serviceware made from EPS foam and other non-recyclable, non-compostable plastics. Light and aerodynamic, these problem products are uniquely litter-prone even when properly disposed of, and pose a serious threat to the riparian marine environment and wildlife. Even when they are no longer visible to the naked eye, plastic bags and EPS containers are still not fully gone but instead have photo- degraded into tiny particles that adsorb toxins and contaminate our food chain and water and soil quality. Beach cleanup studies show plastic bags and polystyrene are two of the most common forms of litter found. Plastic marine debris pollution has killed thousands of marine birds, sea turtles and other species and threatens California's multi-billion dollar ocean-based economy. In addition to the environmental benefits of these ordinances, there are considerable direct economic benefits for the City, including lowered clean up costs, reduced maintenance and sorting costs for the curbside recycling program, and decreased clogging and maintenance of stormwater systems. The US Environmental Protection Agency recently estimated that the City spends over $767,000 annually on cleanups and litter prevention of marine debris. Cupertino residents are currently using an estimated 31.3 million plastic bags annually. These "free" bags cost grocers over$532,000 each year, a cost that is then passed on to their customers. The ordinance is expected to reduce plastic bag usage by 95%. Single-use bag ordinances have been successfully implemented in 50 cities or counties across the state, and as evidenced by recent numbers from Los Angeles County, they can also reduce paper bag distribution. LA County's plastic bag ban, paired with a ten cent paper bag charge, resulted in a 95%overall reduction of all single-use bags, including a 30% reduction of paper bags. Recycling of these materials is not an option. CAW has worked with retailers, bag manufacturers, and local governments in an effort to try to manage single-use plastic bags through recycling. We sponsored AB 2449 (Levine), which provides in-store recycling for plastic bags. Despite establishing the state's largest collection infrastructure for any single material, efforts to manage single-use plastic bags through recycling have failed. 921 11th Street, Suite 420 • Sacramento, CA 95814 • (916)4z 3-5422 FAX: (916)443-3912 •www.cawrecycles.org Moreover, despite decades of promises from the plastic industry for a comprehensive recycling infrastructure, no widespread recycling scheme for polystyrene has ever been successfully implemented over the long term. Along with limited recycling opportunities, food contamination issues and the lightweight quality of the material make it difficult to successfully recycle EPS. Last year's efforts to enact a statewide ban of plastic bags with AB 298 (Brownley) and a statewide ban of EPS containers with SB 568 (Lowenthal) failed to pass. Municipalities, who are primarily responsible for the clean-up of plastic litter, should not wait for state action. Plastic marine pollution is a global problem with local solutions. The phase out of single-use plastic bags and EPS and other unsustainable food containers is a proven and responsible solution for combating waste and the environmental and financial costs of single-use plastic litter. CAW thanks the City for your environmental leadership and urges you to continue your tradition of leadership by supporting the Reusable Bag Ordinance and directing staff to work on an EPS Food Container Ordinance. Sincerely, •diti-4— Mark Murray Executive Director cc: City Council Members 921 11`x'Street, Suite 420 • Sacramento, CA 95814 • (916)443-5422 FAX: (916)443-3912 •www.cawrecycles.org 540 Saco Terrace JAN 1 4 2013 J Sunnyvale, CA 94089 (408) 733-4516 CUPERTINO CITY CLERK griffith@dweeb.org January 12, 2013 Mayor and City Council City of Cupertino 10300 Torre Avenue CC 1/15/13 Item #15 Cupertino, CA 95014 Honorable Mayor and Council, My name is Jim Griffith, I am the Vice Mayor of the City of Sunnyvale, and I currently serve as Chair of the Santa Clara County Recycling and Waste Reduction Commission (RWRC). I write to you as Chair of the RWRC to encourage you to support your staffs recommendations on item 15 on Tuesday's agenda, the proposed bag ordinance,the proposed litter ordinance, and related actions involving expanded polystyrene (EPS). I hope to attend your meeting in person and answer any questions or concerns you may have. But since I have my own council meeting on Tuesday, I may not be in time to be useful. The RWRC has extensive experience with the issues involved in adopting a single use policy and an EPS ban,and we've worked with staff in San Jose,Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, and Santa Clara County on the issues related to single-use bag ordinances. By now,you should have received the recommendations from the RWRC on those two topics. Additionally, the City of:Sunnyvale has recently gone through the exact same process that you are currently experiencing and adopted a very aggressive single-use bag policy and the strictest EPS food container ban in the county. I am very familiar with the many issues and concerns that you must currently resolve. I believe the relevant phrase is"been there, done that". In my experience, I am most struck by two aspects of this discussion. First, I was surprised by how strongly supportive staff has been of adopting these policies. I expected a certain level of ambivalence with plastic bags and EPS, seeing them as more of a policy concern than an operational issue. But the staff I've worked with in Sunnyvale, in other cities and at the county level has strongly supported adopting these policies. To me, that indicates just how severe the operational problems caused by these materials really are—the people tasked with dealing with them very much want them gone. Second, I was surprised by just how quickly resident resistance to the plastic bag ban has almost completely disappeared in Sunnyvale now that the ban has been in effect for several months. We experienced the same level of resident resistance that you now see, and we rarely get complaints a mere six months later. I'm told San Jose's experience has been similar. These policies are issues of regional importance, both environmentally and economically. The impact of your decision will go beyond the limits of Cupertino. Plastic bags and EPS particles become airborne very easily, and both materials make their way into streams, which is of obvious concern to Sunnyvale and Mountain View,your downstream neighbors. I am also struck by a comment that was made by the California Grocers' Association in their generally positive comments regarding staff's proposal—industry experiences has(sic) shown that inconsistent regulation confuses customers and creates competitive disadvantages for retailers operating in neighboring jurisdictions as well as retailers with multiple store locations in different locations. These issues are of regional concern, and the entire region has a vested interested in having a uniform approach to the single-use materials problems. Sunnyvale made a concerted effort to match its ordinance to San Jose's, to reflect this. To witness the confusion when jurisdictions disagree,you merely need to visit the Valley Fair Mall, where the stores physically within San Jose are subject to an ordinance,while the stores physically within Santa Clara are not. I would also like to take this opportunity to clarify some of the more common misconceptions and notions related to this topic. • "Biodegradable" bags are not a practical option. These materials,typically made of polylactic acid or PLA, only biodegrade in high-heat (> 150 degree) anaerobic composting, something that is not used in most landfills. They do not break down in nature or once they make their way into the waterway—they're just as permanent in the environment as conventional plastic. And solid waste handlers cannot distinguish "biodegradable" bags and separate them from normal plastic for separate handling. PLA has only shown to be practical for individual use by home compost hobbyists who can do hand sorting of their trash. • The common complaint that "I reuse those bags as garbage bags" is meritless. In a solid waste handler, the very first thing that happens is that metal teeth shred bags, so the garbage inside can be sorted and recycled as much as possible. Those bag fragments then make their way into the environment at the solid waste handler, during transport to landfill, or in the landfill itself. Using them as garbage bags does not protect the environment—quite the contrary. • Single-use bag ordinances are clearly proven to reduce waste. Ireland pioneered the use of single-use ordinances, and they experienced a better than 90% reduction in bag use and corresponding litter. Closer to home,San Jose has experienced a reduction in street and storm drain trash from between 59%and 89%in just the short time its policy has been in place,with only 4%of retailers failing to obey the law. Unfortunately, Sunnyvale's ordinance is too new to be measured yet, and Sunnyvale's experience is harder to measure since its SMaRT Station also serves Mountain View,which does not yet have a ban in place (but which is now pursuing the issue). But anecdotally,the impact on SMaRT Station and storm run-off equipment in Sunnyvale has been significant. I know from first-hand experience just how much courage you need to consider this issue. Three years ago, I was ambivalent on the topic. I take civil liberties seriously, and I am not a fan of bans in general. When we voted on the issue in Sunnyvale, I was supportive but very concerned about its impact on residents. Now, I'm an ardent supporter. As a society, we have recognized the very real damage caused by specific environmental "bad actors", such as mercury thermometers, old tires, lead-based paint, and lead/acid batteries. We have accepted the importance of removing those materials from the waste stream and keeping them from the environment. These "t-shirt" plastic bags and EPS food containers are similar"bad actors" with no practical alternative to an outright ban. Recycling is ineffective—only 5%of plastic bags are recycled, and contaminated EPS cannot be recycled at all. And the single-use bag policy proposed by your staff reflects a key aspect of zero waste goals—the elimination or reduction of single-use materials from the municipal waste stream. Currently, 71%of the residents of Santa Clara County are subject to existing single-use bag policies, while Mountain View and Los Altos are considering single-use bag policies of their own. Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, and unincorporated Santa Clara County have adopted EPS bans, while San Jose and Mountain View are considering their own EPS food packaging bans. I urge you to join in the regional efforts to deal with these "bad actors" and adopt your staff's recommendation. If I can be of any assistance with this issue, I encourage you to contact me. Sincerely, / ((2 - Jim Griffith Vice Mayor, City of Sunnyvale Chair, Santa Clara County Recycling and Waste Reduction Commission Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 9:03 AM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Serious consequences on bag bans I found some shocking information on utexas website Attachments: 10-01-12_Grocery Bag Bans and Foodborne Illness.pdf From: Joseph Sze [mailto:josephs609@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 3:07 AM To: Mark Santoro Cc: Orrin Mahoney Subject: Serious consequences on bag bans I found some shocking information on utexas website Dear Mark, I guess we often left out health and safety issues which is a major factor we are against a bag ban. E coli is spreading rapidly nowadays. Cupertino really should take the health and safety of their residents into consideration. Joseph 1 Grocery Bag Bans and Foodborne Illness Jonathan Klick Joshua D. Wright' August 15,2012 Abstract Recently, many jurisdictions have implemented bans or imposed taxes upon plastic grocery bags on environmental grounds. Plastic bags are thought to endanger marine animals and add to litter. San Francisco County was the first major US jurisdiction to enact such a regulation, implementing a ban in 2007 and extending it to all retailers in 2012. There is evidence, however, that reusable grocery bags, a common substitute for plastic bags, contain potentially harmful bacteria, especially coliform bacteria such as E. coli. We examine deaths and emergency room admissions related to these bacteria in the wake of the San Francisco ban. We find that both deaths and ER visits spiked as soon as the ban went into effect. Relative to other counties, deaths in San Francisco increase by 50-100 percent, and ER visits increase by a comparable amount. Subsequent bans by other cities in California appear to be associated with similar effects. Klick,Professor of Law,University of Pennsylvania School of Law;Wright,Professor,George Mason University School of Law and Department of Economics. We thank Natalie Hayes and Elise Nelson for excellent research assistance. 1 Introduction In an effort to reduce litter and protect marine animals,jurisdictions across the globe are considering banning plastic grocery bags. In the US, California leads the way. San Francisco enacted a county-wide ban covering large grocery stores and drug stores in 2007. It extended this ban to all retail establishments in early 2012. Los Angeles followed suit in 2012, as did a number of smaller cities throughout the state. Some municipalities have imposed taxes on the bags rather than implement bans. These bans are designed to induce individuals to use reusable grocery bags, in the hope that a reduction in the use of plastic bags will lead to less litter. Recent studies, however, suggest that reusable grocery bags harbor harmful bacteria, the most important of which is E. coli. If individuals fail to fastidiously clean their reusable bags, these bacteria may lead to contamination of the food transported in the bags. Such contamination has the potential to lead to health problems and even death. We examine the pattern of deaths from intestinal diseases generally and emergency room visits for E. coli related illness in particular around the implementation of the San Francisco County ban in October 2007. We find that deaths increase by 50-100 percent relative to California's other counties. We find comparable changes in emergency room visits. This suggests that the plastic bag ban generated serious public health problems. • Examination of other California bans yields similar results. Using standard estimates of the statistical value of life,we show that the health costs associated with the San Francisco ban swamp any budgetary savings from reduced litter. This assessment is unlikely to be reversed even if fairly liberal estimates of the other environmental benefits are included. We provide details about the motivation for and the provisions of the San Francisco ban in Section 2. We discuss the evidence regarding the health risks of reusable bags in Section 3. Section 4 provides our estimates of the effect of the San Francisco ban, and Section 5 provides a cost benefit analysis. Section 6 concludes. 2. Grocery Bag Bans In 2007,1 San Francisco adopted the Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance ("PBRO") prohibiting the distribution of non-compostable plastic checkout bags by supermarkets with more than$2 million in annual gross sales and by pharmacies with at least five I The ban went into effect on October 20,2007. 2 locations within San Francisco. The PBRO amended the San Francisco Environmental Code to require the affected stores to distribute only compostable plastic, recyclable paper, or reusable bags at checkout. The PBRO cites San Francisco County's duty to reduce the environmental impact of plastic checkout bags both locally and more broadly. The ordinance attributes the deaths of over 100,000 marine animals per year to plastic entanglement and states that over 12 million barrels of oil are required to produce the plastic bags used in the United States annually. The PBRO favorably references a bag tax in Ireland, and claims the Irish ordinance has led to a 90% reduction in plastic checkout bag usage. In addition to prohibiting the distribution of non-compostable plastic checkout bags, the PBRO regulates the distribution of compostable plastic bags, recyclable paper bags, and reusable bags. The PBRO provides that a compostable plastic bag must meet American Society for Testing and Materials standards for compostability by a recognized verification entity, and must display the terms "Green Cart Compostable" and "Reusable" in a highly visible manner on the outside of the bag. The PBRO further provides that any recyclable paper bag distributed by a covered store at checkout must: contain no old growth fiber, be 100%recyclable, contain at least 40% post-consumer recycled content, and display "recyclable" and "reusable" in a highly visible manner on the outside of the bag. The PBRO also requires that reusable bags be made of cloth or other machine washable fabric, or made of durable plastic at least 2.25 mils thick. Violation of the PBRO results in a fine of up to$100 for the first violation, $200 for the second violation, and $500 for each subsequent:violation in a given year. The ordinance also contemplates the imposition of administrative penalties equal to the fines. The City Attorney may seek injunctive relief or civil penalties of up to$200 for the first violation, $400 for the second violation, and $600 for each subsequent violation in a given year. In February 2012, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors expanded the non- compostable plastic checkout bag ban to cover all retail and food establishments in San Francisco County. Effective October 1, 2012, stores must charge a minimum of$0.10 for any bag provided to customers. The stores must list the bag charge separately on each customer's receipt. The mandatory$0.10 charge does not apply to transactions paid for via food stamps or other government aid programs. The expanded ordinance also details additional requirements for bags to be designated as "reusable." As of October 1, 2012, reusable bags must have a usable life greater than 125 uses, and be capable of carrying at least 22 pounds over a distance of at least 175 feet. Furthermore, reusable bags must be durable enough to be washed and disinfected 3 at least 100 times. Because the usable life requirement exceeds the number of washes requirement, the ordinance assumes the bag will not be washed after every use. Several other California municipalities banned plastic bags in the two years after San Francisco,2 including the City of Malibu, the Town of Fairfax, and the City of Palo Alto. Malibu's ordinance prohibits retail establishments (including grocery stores, pharmacies, liquor stores, convenience stores, and any store selling food, clothing, or personal items) from providing any plastic checkout bags (regardless of compostability) to a customer. Stores may provide recyclable paper bags, as well as single item plastic bags. The ordinance does not include any stipulated penalties. In the Town of Fairfax, the plastic bag ordinance provides that all retail establishments may distribute only recyclable paper bags or reusable bags. The penalty for distributing a prohibited bag is $100 for the first offense, up to $200 for a second offense, and $500 for each subsequent offense in a given year. Palo Alto's plastic bag ordinance prohibits supermarkets with at least$2 million in annual gross revenue from distributing anything other than recyclable paper bags or reusable bags. Violators are subject to a penalty not greater than$250 for the first two offenses. Three or more violations constitute a misdemeanor, which allows for fines up to$1,000. Table 1 lists the grocery bag bans in California.3 Table 1: Grocery Bag Bans in California Jurisdiction Implementation Date San Francisco (county and city) October 20, 2007 Malibu (city) November 26, 2008 Fairfax (city) June 4, 2009 Palo Alto (city) September 18, 2009 3. What's In Your Bag? 2 California law prohibits municipalities from instituting taxes or fees on plastic bags until at least 2013, which has resulted in local governments seeking to regulate plastic bag distribution implementing bans rather than taxes. 3 Other California cities which have adopted bans include:Santa Monica,Calabasas,Long Beach,San Jose,Manhattan Beach,Pasadena,Monterey,Sunnyvale,Ojai,Millbrae,Laguna Beach,Los Angeles, Dana Point,Carpinteria,Ukiah,Watsonville,Solana Beach,Fort Bragg,Carmel-by-the-Sea,Santa Cruz.Other California counties include:Los Angeles(unincorporated areas),Santa Clara,Marin,Santa Cruz,San Luis Obispo,Alameda,Mendocino(unincorporated areas).Sixteen jurisdictions outside California have adopted laws banning or taxing plastic bags. 4 Williams et al (2011) randomly selected reusable grocery bags from consumers in grocery stores in Arizona and California. They examined the bags, finding coliform bacteria in 51 percent of the bags tested. Coliform bacteria were more prevalent in the California bags, especially those collected in the Los Angeles area. E. coli was found in 8 percent of the bags examined. The study also found that most people did not use separate bags for meats and vegetables. Further, 97 percent of individuals indicated they never washed their reusable grocery bags. Bacteria appeared to grow at a faster rate if the bags were stored in car trunks. This study suggests there may be large risks associated with the use of reusable grocery bags, though it does imply that fastidious washing of the bags can virtually eliminate the risks. However, it appears that no one actually washes these bags. Repp and Keene (2012) provide a case study where a reusable grocery bag was the point source for an outbreak of norovirus among an Oregon soccer team participating in a tournament in Washington State. The authors tracked the infections to a reusable grocery bag that had been stored in a hotel bathroom used by a sick member of the team. While the original source of the virus never touched the bag in question, the authors found evidence of the norovirus in the bag. The bag contained food the rest of the team members consumed, leading to the subsequent infections. This case study suggests that reusable grocery bags are highly susceptible to contamination. Though the literature on the health risks of reusable grocery bags is sparse, these studies highlight the cross contamination potential of these bags and the general tendency of their users not to clean them. Thus, it is possible that banning plastic grocery bags can lead to public health problems, as individuals substitute to reusable bags. 4. Plastic Bag Bans and Foodborne Illness We focus on the San Francisco ban because it is the earliest ban in a major jurisdiction, allowing us to examine a few post ban time periods. Also, given that death data are generally aggregated at the county level, the fact that the San Francisco ban covered the entire county is helpful. We examined cause of death data from the CDC Wonder System. Given the confidentiality protocols of this data source, we were not able to examine all counties in California since county periods with few deaths attributable to a given cause of death are censored. To maximize our sample, we aggregate over all ICD- 10 codes comprising "intestinal infectious diseases" (A00-A09). To analyze emergency room visits, we used the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development's Emergency Department and Ambulatory Surgery Data for each quarter 5 from 2005-2010. These data provide the county of residence of each person admitted to a California ER, as well as the principal diagnosis for the individual using ICD-9 codes. Given the prevalence of coliform bacteria, especially E. coli, in reusable grocery bags, we focus on ER visits involving E. coli. We also examine foodborne illnesses generally, adding salmonella, listeria, toxoplasma, campylobacter, clostridium, and norovirus (food poisoning) to the E. coli counts in some of our ER analyses. Descriptive statistics are available in Table 2. Table 2: Descriptive Statistics Variable Definition Mean Std. Source Dev. Deaths from Number of deaths in given 123 186 CDC intestinal county in given year diseases attributed to causes listed under the ICD-10 heading "intestinal infectious diseases" (A00-A09) ER Visits for E. Number of emergency 82 177 California Coli room admissions in given Office of county in given quarter of a Statewide year where principal Health diagnosis code involved E. Planning and coli Development ER Visits for Number of emergency 93 200 California Foodborne room admissions in given Office of Illness county in given quarter of a Statewide year where principal Health diagnosis code involved Planning and any foodborne illness, Development including E. coli, salmonella, listeria, toxoplasma, clostridium, food poisoning, and campylobacter 6 4.a The San Francisco Bag Ban and Deaths from Infectious Diseases The San Francisco County ban went into effect:in October 2007. The cause of death data are only available on an annual basis, and are currently available through 2009. We examine the period 2005-2009 and include all California counties that have un-censored death counts available for each of these years. This restriction leaves us with the following 10 counties in addition to San Francisco: Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura. Given the short time period examined, we directly examine deaths, rather than rates, because any population changes during the time period are interpolated rather than observed. To account for differences in the magnitude of deaths across these counties, we examine the natural log of deaths. In our regressions, we include county-level fixed effects and common year effects. Because of likely dependence through time in foodborne illness deaths, perhaps due to unmeasured cultural effects that influence dies:or safety practices of the grocery stores in the county, we cluster standard errors at the county level. However, we are also concerned that there is dependence across counties within a given time period, due to unmeasured shocks to food distribution channels. To account for this, we use the multi- way clustering technique described in Cameron, Gelbach, and Miller (2012) clustering on county and year. Table 3 provides the results of this regression. We find that the San Francisco County ban is associated with a 46 percent increase in deaths from foodborne illnesses. This implies an increase of 5.5 deaths for the county. The effect is statistically significant at better than the 1 percent level. To provide confidence in the causal interpretation of this result, we analyzed restricted samples that may provide a better counterfactual for San Francisco County. If we restrict attention to the three Bay area counties, San Francisco plus Alameda and Contra Costa, our estimated effect increases and remains statistically significant despite the decline in sample size. We also examined a sample restricted to counties with percentage changes in deaths between 2005 and 2006 that were similar to San Francisco's increase of 9 percent: Alameda (0 percent); Contra Costa (+12.5 percent); San Bernardino (+15 percent); and Ventura (+11.8 percent). Results for this set of counties were also similar. The analysis provided here presents some inferential difficulties. Namely, we only observe a policy change within a single cluster. Conley and Taber (2011) and Gelbach, Helland, and Klick (forthcoming) suggest that in such a setting, using the critical values from a standard normal distribution may not be appropriate for statistical inference. 7 Roughly speaking,because there is limited averaging across potentially dependent observations, a central limit theorem may not hold. Both suggest a procedure wherein the estimated treatment effect is compared to the empirical distribution of non- treatment residuals. In the current setting,because our estimated treatment effect is averaged over three periods after the law change, we provide the distribution of a three period moving average of non-treatment residuals in Figure 1. In all specifications,we find that our treatment effect is statistically significant, with the coefficients lying well outside of the relevant residual distributions. 8 Table 3: Effect of San Francisco County Plastic Bag Ban on Deaths from Intestinal Diseases (standard errors multi-way clustered by county and by year) ln(deaths from intestinal infectious diseases) All Counties Bay Area Counties Comparable Counties Bag Ban 0.38*** 0.40*** 0.37*** (0.12) (0.05) (0.13) County Fixed Yes Yes Yes Effects Year Fixed Effects Yes Yes Yes County-Trends No No No Relative Effect +46% +49% +45% Implied Change in +5.52 +5.88 +5.40 Deaths p-value from 0.00 0.00 0.00 Empirical Distribution Function Observations 55 15 25 Note: Dependent variable is the natural log of the number of deaths in a given county in a given year attributed to causes listed under the ICD-10 heading "intestinal infectious diseases" (A00-A09) according to the CDC. Implied change in deaths is relative to the deaths in San Francisco County in 2006, the year before the ban was implemented. The p-value from the empirical distribution function comes from the method suggested in Conley and Taber (2011) and Gelbach, Helland, and Klick (forthcoming) adjusted for a treatment effect averaged over a three year period. *** p <0.01 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) ** p <0.05 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) *p <0.10 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) 9 Figure 1: Empirical Residual Distributions for Table 3 , r r -.1 -.05 0 .05 .1 All CA Counties Average Treatment Effect=0.38 i r r i i r -.06 -.04 -.02 0 .02 .04 Bay Area Counties Average Treatment Effect=0.40 -.1 -.05 0 .05 .1 Comparison Counties Average Treatment Effect=0.37 3 year moving average residual In Table 4, we include county-level trends. In each case, we find a larger effect of the bag ban. When compared to all available California counties, we estimate that the ban is associated with a 132 percent increase in deaths from foodborne illnesses. This equates to an additional 16 deaths, and the effect is highly statistically significant based on standard inference and based on the empirical residual distribution. 10 Table 4: Effect of San Francisco County Plastic Bag Ban on Deaths from Intestinal Diseases Accounting for County-Level Trends (standard errors multi-way clustered by county and by year) ln(deaths from intestinal infectious diseases) All Counties Bay Area Counties Comparable Counties Bag Ban 0.84*** 0.68*** 0.65*** (0.11) (0.02) (0.17) County Fixed Yes Yes Yes Effects Year Fixed Effects Yes Yes Yes County-Trends Yes Yes Yes Relative Effect +132% +98% +91% Implied Change in +15.83 +11.78 +10.97 Deaths p-value from 0.00 0.00 0.00 Empirical Distribution Function Observations 55 15 25 Note: Dependent variable is the natural log of the number of deaths in a given county in a given year attributed to causes listed under the ICD-10 heading "intestinal infectious diseases" (A00-A09) according to the CDC. Implied change in deaths is relative to the deaths in San Francisco County in 2006, the year before the ban was implemented. The p-value from the empirical distribution function comes from the method suggested in Conley and Taber (2011) and Gelbach, Helland, and Klick (forthcoming) adjusted for a treatment effect averaged over a three year period. *** p<0.01 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) ** p <0.05 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) * p <0.10 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) 11 Figure 2: Empirical Residual Distributions for Table 4 -.1 -.05 0 .05 .1 All CA Counties Average Treatment Effect=0.84 -.02 -.01 0 .01 .02 Bay Area Counties Average Treatment Effect=0.68 -.1 -.05 0 .05 .1 Comparison Counties Average Treatment Effect=0.65 3 year moving average residual Table 5 examines the immediate effect of the ban, restricting the analysis to the period 2005-2007. Although examining such a short time period could present power problems, it allows us to examine whether the increase in deaths occurred right away. Given the October 2007 implementation, any estimated effect would represent the immediate reaction to the bag ban. Relative to the long term average effect estimated in Table 3, the immediate effect appears to be even larger, suggesting an increase in deaths of more than 9. Despite the small sample sizes, this effect is statistically significant at better than the 1 percent level, regardless of which inference approach is used. 12 Table 5: Immediate Effect of San Francisco County Plastic Bag Ban on Deaths from Intestinal Diseases (standard errors multi-way clustered by county and by year) In(deaths from intestinal infectious diseases) All Counties Bay Area Counties Comparable Counties Bag Ban 0.57*** 0.52*** 0.51*** (0.13) (0.01) (0.01) County Fixed Yes Yes Yes Effects Year Fixed Effects Yes Yes Yes County-Trends No No No Relative Effect +77% +69% +67% Implied Change in +9.20 +8.27 +8.01 Deaths p-value from 0.00 0.00 0.00 Empirical Distribution Function Observations 33 9 15 Note: Dependent variable is the natural log of the number of deaths in a given county in a given year attributed to causes listed under the ICD-10 heading "intestinal infectious diseases" (A00-A09) according to the CDC. The sample is restricted to pre- 2008 observations so that the estimated treatment effect is the immediate effect in the period the San Francisco County ban was implemented (20070. Implied change in deaths is relative to the deaths in San Francisco County in 2006. The p-value from the empirical distribution function comes from the method suggested in Conley and Taber (2011) and Gelbach, Helland, and Klick (forthcoming) adjusted for a treatment effect averaged over a three year period. *** p<0.01 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) ** p <0.05 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) * p <0.10 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) 13 Figure 3: Empirical Residual Distributions for Table 5 -.2 -.1 0 .1 .2 .3 All CA Counties Treatment Effect=0.57 -.04 -.02 0 .02 .04 Bay Area Counties Treatment Effect=0.52 -.05 0 .05 Comparison Counties Treatment Effect=0.51 Residuals Pre-2008 4.b ER Visits and the Bag Ban While powerful, the analysis of deaths presented above is limited by the conventions of the cause of death data, censoring and annual aggregation, and the short post-ban period over which data are available. To address these limitations and examine another metric of foodborne illness, we examine admissions to California emergency rooms. The ER data are helpful because they do not present the censoring problem discussed above, as every county experiences enough foodborne illness visits to preserve anonymity.' Also, we can focus attention on a more specific set of illnesses. Namely, we examine visits related to E. coli, given the prevalence of that particular bacterium in the reusable grocery bag study cited above. Lastly, the ER data are aggregated at the quarterly level, allowing us to more precisely isolate the relationship between any change in health outcome and the implementation of the San Francisco ban. • We aggregated the ER data by county of the patient's residence and quarter of year, counting all the instances where the patient's principal diagnosis involved E. coli according to the recorded ICD-9 code. The data allow us to examine every quarter from 2005 through the end of 2010. We examine the natural log of the number of ER visits 4 Despite this,we did omit Los Angeles,Marin,and Santa Clara counties as they each contained a city that passed its own ban during the period. 14 involving E. coli, controlling for county fixed effects and separate time fixed effects for each quarter. We again multi-way cluster the standard errors at the county and time period levels to account for the dependence discussed above. We examine three separate specifications: (1) no county level trends; (2) county level trends; and (3) a specification that limits the sample from 2005 through the end of 2007 to isolate the immediate effect of the bag ban on ER admissions. Table 6 provides our results. We find that the bag ban is associated with a 34 percent increase in ER visits where E. coli is included in the principal diagnosis. This suggests an additional 40 ER visits. If trends are included, these estimates increase to a 61 percent rise or 70 additional ER visits. If we focus upon the immediate effect of the ban, it is slightly larger than the average effect, suggesting that the increase was observed immediately. All of these results are statistically significant at better than the 1 percent level using standard inference methods. When comparing to the empirical residual distribution, the average effect without trends is statistically significant at the 10 percent level, and the effect where trends are included is statistically significant at the 1 percent level. The immediate effect is not statistically significant using the non-parametric inference method. Although not presented, if we restrict the sample to all of the Bay Area counties, all of the estimated coefficients increase in magnitude and precision. This lends confidence to the conclusion that the San Francisco County ban is associated with an increase in ER admissions related to E. coli. 15 Table 6: Effect of San Francisco County Plastic Bag Ban on Emergency Room Visits for E. Coli. (standard errors multi-way clustered by county and by year) ln(number of ER visits where E. Coli. Is primary diagnosis) No Trends Trends Immediate Effect Bag Ban 0.29*** 0.47*** 0.36*** (0.10) (0.14) (0.08) County Fixed Yes Yes Yes Effects Year Fixed Effects Yes Yes Yes County-Trends No Yes No Relative Effect +34% +61% +44% Implied Change in +40 +70 +51 ER Visits per Year p-value from 0.06 0.00 0.28 Empirical Distribution Function Observations 1,176 1,176 586 Note: Dependent variable is the natural log of the number of emergency room visits in a given county in a given quarter where the principal diagnosis code involved E. coli. Implied change in ER visits is relative to the visits by residents of San Francisco County in the third quarter of 2007, the period before the ban was implemented. The p-value from the empirical distribution function comes from the method suggested in Conley and Taber (2011) and Gelbach, Helland, and Klick (forthcoming) adjusted for a treatment effect averaged over a three year period. *** p<0.01 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) **p <0.05 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) *p <0.10 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) In Table 7, we examine the effect of the ban on ER admissions where the principal diagnosis involved any of the major foodborne illnesses. The effects are largely similar to those specifically examining E. coli, suggesting that this particular pathogen is the primary source of illness related to the San Francisco bag ban. 16 Table 7: Effect of San Francisco County Plastic Bag Ban on Emergency Room Visits for Any Foodborne Illness (standard errors multi-way clustered by county and by year) ln(number of ER visits where a foodborne illness is primary diagnosis) No Trends Trends Immediate Effect Bag Ban 0.24*** 0.35*** 0.25*** (0.09) (0.11) (0.07) County Fixed Yes Yes Yes Effects Year Fixed Effects Yes Yes Yes County-Trends No Yes No Relative Effect +27% +42% +28% Implied Change in +42 +64 +42 ER Visits per Year p-value from 0.10 0.00 0.41 Empirical Distribution Function Observations 1,176 1,176 586 Note: Dependent variable is the natural log of the number of emergency room visits in a given county in a given quarter where the principal diagnosis code involved any foodborne illness, including E. coli, salmonella, listeria, toxoplasma, clostridium, food poisoning, and campylobacter. Implied change in ER visits is relative to the visits by residents of San Francisco County in the third quarter of 2007, the period before the ban was implemented. The p-value from the empirical distribution function comes from the method suggested in Conley and Taber(2011) and Gelbach, Helland, and Klick (forthcoming) adjusted for a treatment effect averaged over a three year period. *** p<0.01 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) ** p<0.05 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) * p<0.10 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) 4.c Other California Bag Bans While a number of other California jurisdictions have adopted bag bans, only Malibu, Fairfax, and Palo Alto adopted their bans during the time period covered by the ER data. Also, because these bans cover only cities or towns, any analysis is potentially problematic. While it is likely that individuals in San Francisco do most of their food 17 shopping within the county, residents of Palo Alto may shop outside the jurisdiction's boundaries. To bias against finding an effect, we coded each county containing these cities as having adopted a ban when the city itself did. We also omitted San Francisco County from this set of analyses. Otherwise, the analyses are comparable to those above. Table 8 provides the results for these other bans. Although the estimated effects are smaller, as expected given that small portions of counties are coded as entire counties, they are still statistically significant (at the 5 percent level) and quite large in both the no trends and trends specifications. 18 Table 8: Effect of Other California Plastic Bag Bans on Emergency Room Visits (standard errors multi-way clustered by county and by year) ln(number of ER visits where E. Coli is the primary diagnosis) No Trends Trends Bag Ban 0.18** 0.19** (0.08) (0.09) County Fixed Yes Yes Effects Year Fixed Effects Yes Yes County-Trends No Yes Relative Effect +19% +21% Implied Change in +956 +1,030 ER Visits per Year Observations 1,224 1,224 Note: Note: Dependent variable is the natural log of the number of emergency room visits in a given county in a given quarter where the principal diagnosis code involved E. coli. Implied change in ER visits is relative io the visits by residents of the counties in which bans were enacted in the quarter before the ban was implemented. *** p <0.01 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) **p <0.05 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) * p <0.10 (against a two-sided test of a null hypothesis of the bag ban coefficient=0) Taken together, these results suggest that E. coli deaths and ER visits spike after jurisdictions ban plastic grocery bags. This is a natural implication of the work finding that reusable grocery bags contain harmful bacteria given the tendency of individuals to not use separate bags for meats and vegetables and their failure to clean the bags. The increases are practically important and occur effectively immediately after these bans go into effect. These results also likely understate the true total effect because many individuals likely suffer foodborne illnesses without going to the hospital or dying. 5. Is It Worth It? Our results suggest that the San Francisco ban led to between 5.4 and 15.8 additional deaths. Using the EPA's current estimate of the value of a statistical life, 8.4 million in current dollars, this suggests a loss of between $45 million and $133 million without considering the additional hospital costs, either associated with these deaths or with the increased ER visits documented above, or the personal costs suffered by individuals who do not seek medical care. 19 Against these costs, in 2004 San Francisco estimated that plastic bag waste cost it$8.5 million annually,'which is$10.3 million in current dollars. Given that plastic bags are generally estimated to be cheaper to make than substitute bags, this implies that any improvements to the environment owing to the bad ban need to be worth between$35 million and $123 million annually to justify the bans on cost benefit grounds. A precise valuation of the environmental benefits is hard to come by. However, many advocacy groups suggest that plastic refuse (from all sources, not just bags) kills 1 million birds and 100,000 other aquatic animals annually. A conservative estimate is that global plastic bag use is at least 500 billion bags annually, of which 180 million were used in San Francisco prior to the ban.' If we assume that a jurisdiction's "share" of animal deaths is proportionate to bag use, and we ignore all other source of plastic, this suggests that San Francisco's annual contribution to animal deaths is on the order of 400 birds and marine animals. This implies a break even valuation of each animal of between$87,500 and $307,500. These numbers are only rough guidelines,but they suggest that the current trend toward bag bans may be imprudent. 6. Conclusion State and local governments have recently imposed bans or levied taxes upon plastic grocery bags. This trend is in response to environmental concerns that plastic bags contribute to litter and endanger marine animals. San Francisco County was the first major US jurisdiction to enact such a regulation, implementing a ban in 2007 and extending it to all retailers in 2012. There has been little empirical evidence proffered illuminating the costs and benefits of these bag bans. We undertake such an analysis in light of concerns that consumers might substitute from the banned or taxed bags toward reusable grocery bags, a common substitute and potential carrier of harmful bacteria such as E. coli. We examine deaths and emergency room admissions related to these bacteria in the wake of the San Francisco ban. We find that both deaths and ER visits spiked as soon as the ban went into effect. Relative to other counties, deaths in San Francisco increase by 50-100 percent, and ER visits increase by a comparable amount. Subsequent bans by other cities in California appear to be associated with similar effects. Conservative estimates of the costs and benefits of the San Francisco plastic bag ban suggest the health risks they impose are not likely offset by environmental benefits. 9 See http:/lwww.cawrecycles.org/issues/plastic campaign/plastic bags/problem 6 See http://vcww.sfgate.com/green/article/S-F-FIRST-CITY-TO-f3AN-PLASTIC-SHOPPING-t3ACS- 2606833.php 20 References Cameron, A. Colin,Jonah B. Gelbach, and Douglas L. Miller (2011). "Robust Inference with Multiway Clustering." Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 29(2): 238-249. Conley, Timothy G., and Christopher R. Taber (2011). "Inference with'Difference in Differences' with a Small Number of Policy Changes." Review of Economics and Statistics, 93(1): 113-125. Town of Fairfax Code Chapter 8.18 §8.18.010-3.18.100 (as amended by Town of Fairfax voters, 2008). Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection. "Retail Bags Report- List of Retail Bag Policies -USA" Web 15 August 2009 <http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/retailbags/pages/list_USA.htm>. Gelbach,Jonah B., Eric Helland, and Jonathan Klick (forthcoming). "Valid Inference in Single-Firm, Single-Event Studies." American Law and Economics Review. City of Malibu Municipal Code Chapter 9.28 § 010-020 (as amended by City of Malibu Ordinance No. 323, 2008). Palo Alto Municipal Code Chapter 5.35 Title 5 (as amended by Palo Alto Ordinance No. 5032, 2009). Plasticbaglaws.org. "State and Local Laws." PlasticBagLaws.org. Web 15 August 2009 <http://plasticbaglaws.org/legislation/state-laws/>. Repp, Kimberly K., and William E. Keene (2012). "A Point-Source Norovirus Outbreak Caused by Exposure to Fomites."Journal of Infectious Diseases, 205: 1639-1641. San Francisco Environment Code, Chapter 17§ 1701-1709 (as amended by Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance 81-07-106883, 2007). Williams, David L., Charles P. Gerba, Sherri Maxwell, and Ryan G. Sinclair (2011). "Assessment of the Potential for Cross-contamination of Food Products by Reusable Shopping Bags." Food Protection Trends, 31(8): 508-513. 21 Brittany Morales _ CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 3:01 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Letter of Support for Cupertino Adopting San Mateo County Reusable Bag Ordinance Attachments: CupertinoBagOrdinanceSupportLetter_5Gyres.pdf; Chico Bag Support Letter.pdf; Cupertino Bag Ban Support-SF Baykeeper.pdf From: Brad Hunt [mailto:brad@saveourshores.orq] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 2:59 PM To: City Council Cc: Cheri Donnelly; Kathryn Cooke Subject: Letter of Support for Cupertino Adopting San Mateo County Reusable Bag Ordinance Dear Mayor Mahoney and Councilmembers, Please see the attached letters of support from 5 Gyres, Chico Bags, and the SF Baykeeper for adoption of the San Mateo Regional Resuable bag Ordinance by the City of Cupertino. Thank you for your consideration. Best regards, Brad Hunt Program Manager Education Coordinator Save Our Shores 345 Lake Avenue, Suite A Santa Cruz, CA 95062 831.462.5660 ext. 5 Fax: 831.462.6070 http://saveourshores.org January 11,2013 Cupertino City Council 10300 Tone Avenue Cupertino,CA 95014 RE. Letter of Support for Single-Use Bag Reduction Ordinance Dear Mayor Mahoney and Councilmembers, The ChicoBag Company is writing to urge you to adopt San Mateo County's reusable bag ordinance.Plastic is not biodegradable,rarely recycled,made of toxic chemicals and petroleum,and is a product of mere convenience.In the marine and an estuarine environment like the San Francisco Bay,plastic threatens wildlife and pollutes waterways, wetlands,and beaches.Banning single-use plastic bags will help preserve the integrity of our local ecosystems, reduce the burden on landfills,reduce litter in our communities,save taxpayer dollars,and help Cupertino meet the trash reduction requirements in the Regional Water Board's stormwaterpennit. Plastic bag bans have been implemented throughout the California Central Coast region and Save Our Shores(SOS) has been collecting data to determine their impact.The county of Santa Cruz's bag ban went in effect on March 20, 2012 and SOS collected data one month before the ban and found that only 10%of shoppers were using reusable bags at the store. One month after the ban,which included a 10 cent fee for paper bags,85%of shoppers were either using a reusable bag or no bag at all. SOS recently conducted another survey and found that 78%of shoppers were choosing reusable or no bag at all instead of single use paper. SOS has also compared our monthly clean up data from 2011 to 2012,isolating plastic bags. We have seen a remarkable drop of over 50%in just 9 months. The average number of plastic bags per cleanup in 2011 was 19 and in 2012 it has dropped to 8. In a recent update to the San Jose Transportation and Environment Committee,city staff reported the impact of the bag ban that went into effect in January 2012. San Jose has seen an 89%reduction in plastic bag litter in storm drains,a 59%reduction in that litter in their creeks and rivers and a 60%reduction in bag litter in streets and neighborhoods.Observation records show that reusable bag use increased greatly following the implementation of the ordinance,from almost 4 percent of bags observed to approximately 62 percent of bags observed.The overall impact was that the average number of single-use bags used per customer decreased from 3 bags to 0.3 bags per visit following the implementation of the ordinance.The proof that bans on plastic bags and a 10 cent fee on paper bags work is all around us.The County of San Mateo's regional ban is a visionary approach to address the issue allowing the 18 cities in San Mateo and 6 in Santa Clara to easily adopt a consistent ban along the peninsula.After San Mateo County passed the ban four cities within the county quickly adopted it.Daly City passed the ban just last night and Colma and Portola Valley are expected to adopt the ban at their city council meetings this week. Bag bans have been passed in San Francisco and Oakland,from Santa Cruz to Monterey,and down the coast to Los Angeles County.We look forward to Cupertino joining these cities in their increased commitment to protect the environment by adopting San Mateo County's reusable bag ordinance.Thank you very much for addressing this critical issue. Sincerely, Andy Keller President ChicoBag,Company 14343 Browns Valley Drive, Chico, CA 95926 www.chicobag.com UNDERSTANDING PLASTIC POLLUTION SGYRES THROUGH EXPLORATION,EDUCATION AND ACTION 5 GYRES INSTITUTE January 10, 2013 From: Marcus Eriksen, PHD Executive Director The 5 Gyres Institute 5gyres.org To: Cupertino City Council 10300 Torre Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014 RE: Letter of Support for Single-Use Bag Reduction Ordinance Dear Mayor Mahoney and Councilmembers: I'm writing to express my support for the ordinance to ban of single-use plastic shopping bags in Cupertino. Our organization, The 5 Gyres Institute has now sailed over 25,000 nautical miles to all major subtropical oceanic gyres in the world, including The North Pacific Gyre. On the surface of the ocean, the two most common types of plastic are Polyethylene and Polypropylene. Plastic bags are made of High Density Polyethylene (HDPE), and are an unnecessary contributor to plastic pollution in the world's oceans. Industry will often argue that `you don't find plastic bags in the gyres' but this is a red herring. Plastic does not biodegrade, but rather, it photo-degrades which means the chains that hold the hydrocarbon molecules together break, leaving micro-fragments plastic that does not biodegrade in a meaningful matter. The problem of these plastic fragments are twofold—plastic, because it's made of a fat, that is, oil, absorbs carcinogenic and endocrine disrupting chemicals present in the ocean. Plastic is so efficient at absorbing these chemicals that an ocean born piece of plastic has been shown by Hideshige Takada at Tokyo Agricultural College in Japan, one of the world's leading researchers on the relationship between plastic and chemicals, to possess a million times higher concentration of pollutants than the ambient sea water surrounding it. And according to a July 2011 publication by Scripps Institute of Oceanography, 9%of base food chain fish (which represent 50% of the biomass in fish in the ocean) have been shown to ingest these plastics. Larger fish eat these fish and we eat larger fish. This is a human health danger. And the problem is growing—according recent findings, the plastic concentration in The North Pacific is 100x more than even 40 years ago. That's a massive increase and proves, unequivocally, that voluntary mitigation initiatives have failed. Often industry will say, `we need more recycling.' Well, recycling doesn't work and it shifts the pollution burden on to taxpayers. According the latest report by the EPA, recycling rates for HDPE, the stuff that plastic bags are made of, is going down. But the recovery numbers are incredibly low to begin with. In 2009, the recovery rate was 6.1%and in 2010, it was 4.3%. But I ask you, what society accepts a four or six percent efficacy rate in any system? What's even more nefarious is that those rates reflect, all HDPE, not just bags. The 5 Gyres Institute estimates that plastic bag recycling is about 1%, nationally, though no reports by the EPA or American Chemistry Council exist for plastic bag recycling. According The Ocean Conservancy's 2010 annual report, 10%of the total amount of trash removed from beaches during their International Coastal Cleanup was plastic bags. With this ordinance, we have the chance to remove 10%of beach trash before it goes into the ocean. 2122 S. Spaulding Avenue • Los Angeles, CA 90016 • www.5gyres.org • +1(310)998-8616 UNDERSTANDING PLASTIC POLLUTION SGYRES THROUGH EXPLORATION,EDUCATION AND ACTION 5 GYRES INSTITUTE Industry also uses scare tactics to attempt to ensure their bottom line. The American Chemistry Council funded a study meant to show that reusable bags can be contaminated by food and can contribute to food born illness. They issued a press release about the dangers of reusable bags that caused a media frenzy. What's interesting is the reports content: NO bacteria of any kind shown to be harmful to humans was present in their sample set, yet this didn't prevent them from issuing the press release. Consumer Reports officially debunked the study stating, "A person eating an average bag of salad greens gets more exposure to these bacteria than if they had licked the insides of the dirtiest bag from this study,"says Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist at Consumers Union. Let's preserve the legacy of California and our municipalities whose economies depend on the sanctity of our oceans by getting rid of these wasteful, unnecessary items. Thank You Marcus Eriksen, PHD Executive Director The 5 Gyres Institute EPA report: :i/ww .epa.tzov:/osw/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/ms‘v 2010 data tables.pdf Scripps: ://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaselD=1 I74 Ocean Conservancy: ://act.oceanconservancv.org/pdt7Marine Debris 2011 Report OC.pdf Consumer Report: http://news.consumerreports.org/safety/2010/07/can-reusable-grocery-bags-make-you-sick-or-is-that just- baloney.html 2122 S. Spaulding Avenue • Los Angeles, CA 90016 • www.5gyres.org • +1(310)998-8616 January 11, 2013 Cupertino City Council 10300 Torre Avenue Cupertino,CA 95014 RE: Letter of Support for Single-Use Bag Reduction Ordinance Dear Mayor Mahoney and Councilmembers, San Francisco Baykeeper is writing to urge you to adopt San Mateo County's reusable bag ordinance. Plastic is not biodegradable, rarely recycled, made of toxic chemicals and petroleum,and is a product of mere convenience. In the marine and an estuarine environment like the San Francisco Bay,plastic threatens wildlife and pollutes waterways,wetlands, and beaches. Banning single-use plastic bags will help preserve the integrity of our local ecosystems. reduce the burden on landfills,reduce litter in our communities, save taxpayer dollars, and help Cupertino meet the trash reduction requirements in the Regional Water Board's stormwater permit. Plastic bag bans have been implemented throughout the California Central Coast region and Save Our Shores(SOS)has been collecting data to determine their impact.The county of Santa Cruz's bag ban went in effect on March 20,2012 and SOS collected data one month before the ban and found that only 10%of shoppers were using reusable bags at the store. One month after the ban,which included a 10 cent fee for paper bags, 85%of shoppers were either using a reusable bag or no bag at all. SOS recently conducted another survey and found that 78%of shoppers were choosing reusable or no bag at all instead of single use paper. SOS has also compared our monthly clean up data from 2011 to 2012, isolating plastic bags. We have seen a remarkable drop of over 50% in just 9 months. The average number of plastic bags per cleanup in 2011 was 19 and in 2012 it has dropped to 8. In a recent update to the San Jose Transportation and Environment Committee,city staff reported the impact of the bag ban that went into effect in January 2012. San Jose has seen an 89%reduction in plastic bag litter in storm drains,a 59%reduction in that litter in their creeks and rivers and a 60% reduction in bag litter in streets and neighborhoods. Observation records show that reusable bag use increased greatly following the implementation of the ordinance, from almost 4 percent of bags observed to approximately 62 percent of bags observed.The overall impact was that the average number of single- use bags used per customer decreased from 3 bags to 0.3 bags per visit following the implementation of the ordinance.The proof that bans on plastic bags and a 10 cent fee on paper bags work is all around us. The County of San Mateo's regional ban is a visionary approach to address the issue allowing the 18 cities in San Mateo and 6 in Santa Clara to easily adopt a consistent ban along the peninsula. After San Mateo County passed the ban four cities within the county quickly adopted it. Daly City passed the ban just last night and Colma and Portola Valley are expected to adopt the ban at their city council meetings this week. Bag bans have been passed in San Francisco and Oakland, from Santa Cruz to Monterey,and down the coast to Los Angeles County. We look forward to Cupertino joining these cities in their increased commitment to protect the environment by adopting San Mateo County's reusable bag ordinance.Thank you very much for addressing this critical issue. Sincerely, Jason Flanders Program Director, San Francisco Baykeeper Brittany Morales _ CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 1:27 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Plastic bags and Expanded Polystyrene From: Barbf53 @aol.com [mailto:Barbf53 @ aol.com] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 12:49 PM To: City Council Subject: Plastic bags and Expanded Polystyrene Honorable Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council: Tomorrow the Cupertino Council has the opportunity to continue on the path toward banning two products especially damaging to the environment on which we all depend, single-use plastic carryout shopping bags and expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam. From hindsight, we can see that these products would best not have been introduced in the first place. Both products are designed for limited use and therefore use resources extravagantly. They both commonly become litter on the land and easily blow into our storm drains and creeks and then to our bays and oceans. They both harm wildlife when ingested. They both break into smaller and smaller pieces, but do not breakdown into harmless substances for decades and decades at least. And in both cases, the manufacturer reaps the profit while foisting the cost of cleaning up their mess onto the taxpayer, the ratepayer and nature, itself. Further, in the case of EPS foam, there is evidence that the toxic chemicals in the product leach into our food (see post script). To make matters worse, EPS is almost impossible to clean up once it becomes litter since it quickly breaks into small particles. As a resident of Sunnyvale, a downstream neighbor, I urge you to ban these two uniquely destructive products and to charge for all bags giiven out at the register, encouraging the use of reusable shopping bags. Please join nearby cities in taking responsibility for our impact on the natural world. The choices made in one city impact the environment in other cities and nature, both near and far. According to Sunnyvale staff, the implementation of our plastic bag ordinance has been smooth. I see more and more customers remembering their reusable bags and declining a bag for a few items. When I shopped recently in Mountain View, where they had approved but not yet implemented their ban, I found it jarring and upsetting to watch single-use plastic bags being used so thoughtlessly for an item or two. Our bag ban was just implemented in the middle of last year; it is amazing how quickly we have risen to the occasion and adapted to our new and better normal. I expect our food foam ban will be similarly uneventful. In fact, many of our restaurants have already switched away from EPS. In Sunnyvale the switch is being facilitated by our Chamber of Commerce! Thank you for taking into account a neighbor's thoughts. Good luck with your decision. 1 Barbara Fukumoto Sunnyvale resident P.S. "Styrene is reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen based on limited evidence of carcinogenicity from studies in humans, sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity from studies in experimental animals, and supporting data on mechanisms of carcinogenesis" according to, a 2011 report by the US Department of Health and Human Services, http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/twelfth/rocl2.pdf Clearly styrene has not been proven safe for humans, yet we currently allow our food to be served in it. 2 Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 3:18 PM To: Brittany Morales Cc: Cheri Donnelly Subject: FW: Prevent plastic pollution in 2013 Original Message From: dean.madsen @gmail.com [mailto:dean.madsen @gmail.com] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 3:12 PM To: Orrin Mahoney Subject: Prevent plastic pollution in 2013 Dean Madsen 1116 Meredith Ave. SAN JOSE, CA 95125-3238 January 14, 2013 Orrin Mahoney Dear Orrin Mahoney: Dear Mayor Mahoney and Councilmembers, Our creeks here in Cupertino and throughout the Bay Area are threatened daily by pollution. Everything from motor oil to pesticides to trash flow from our streets and into our waterways. Plastic bags and Styrofoam are not only some of the most common pollutants in our creeks, but they are also some of the easiest to prevent. I want to see the City of Cupertino play an active role in eliminating these ubiquitous threats to water quality in the Bay. I understand staff have been working on policies to address the serious litter problem in our waterways. I hope our city can join the dozens of Bay Area cities that have already banned Styrofoam and plastic bags and take a stand against plastic in the Bay. We can help lead other Santa Clara County cities to do the same. Please ban plastic bags and Styrofoam and make 2013 the year Cupertino protects the Bay. 1 Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 5:24 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Single Use Bag ban From: John Leopold [mailto:John.Leopold@co.santa-cruz.ca.us] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 5:18 PM To: Orrin Mahoney Subject: Single Use Bag ban Mayor Mahoney I am writing to encourage you to support the single use bag ban in Cupertino. The County of Santa Cruz enacted one last year and it has already made an improvement in watersheds and on our beaches. Between our first discussion and enactment of the ban, our County worked with community based organizations to conduct outreach to the community on the value of the ban. We distributed free bags at grocery stores, did consumer education presentations and used the media to explain the change to our constituents. While some in the community questioned the efficacy of this ban, once the ban was in place most everyone found that the change in habits was easy and well supported by our grocery stores. Large signs have been placed at major retailers such as Safeway that remind people to bring their own bags and the County ha s held several multi-use bag give-aways to encourage this change in habits. At our grocery stores today it is easy to see many in our community have already adopted to the ban and have plenty of bags to with them when they shop. You can really make a difference in California through your adoption of the a single use bag ban in Cupertino. I hope that you will join our County and our incorporated cities in helping improve our environment. Please contact me if you have any questions. John John Leopold Santa Cruz County Supervisor, 1st District 831-454-2200 john.leopold @co.santa-cruz.ca.us 1 Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 2:33 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Please Ban the free distrubution of Plastic Bags! Original Message From: Christopher Pincetich [mailto:chris @tirn.net] Sent: Monday,January 14, 2013 2:12 PM To: City Council Subject: Please Ban the free distrubution of Plastic Bags! Dear Members of the City Council, I respectfully request you take action to ban single use plastic bags and place a fee on recycled paper bags in Cupertino at this upcoming Council Meeting. I support this measure because it will encourage a shift away from disposable plastic use and towards a culture of re-usable bags. Plastic litter is very common degrades our neighborhoods, local waterways, and ocean ecosystems we all rely on. It is hazardous to public health, wildlife, and is difficult to collect once it becomes litter. Banning single use plastic bags will reduce spending taxpayer dollars on the cleanup of plastic debris and will encourage a community that values it's resources. I live in a community that has enjoyed a plastic bag ban for over a year and can say that businesses support it, the locals support it, and the neighborhood is cleaner because of it. Christopher Pincetich 10 Tomasini Canyon Rd Point Reyes Station, CA 94956 i Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 2:50 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Cupertino Bag Ordiance- From: Keith Turner [mailto:Keith.Turner@safeway.com] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 2:49 PM To: Gilbert Wong Subject: FW: Cupertino Bag Ordiance - Dear Councilmember— I am looking forward to speaking with you in person at a later date. All of us at Safeway are very excited about the new store coming in later this year. Today I wanted to send a quick note of support for your bag ordinance. We support this kind of legislation for the following reasons: • The model ordinance developed by San Mateo County and passed by other jurisdictions is the preferred policy • It is important that neighboring jurisdictions regulate regionally to avoid consumer confusion and competitive disadvantages • Safeway has implemented several of these ordinances before and will work with its customers to ensure a smooth transition. Keith Turner Director, Public and Government Affairs Safeway Inc. Northern California Division 925.467.2212 925.467.2971 (fax) keith.turner a(�safeway.com "Email Firewall" made the following annotations. Warning: All e-mail sent to this address will be received by the corporate e-mail system, and is subject to archival and review by someone other than the recipient. This e-mail may contain proprietary information and is intended only for the use of the intended recipient(s). If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient(s), you are notified that you have received this message in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately. Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 3:44 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Support for Regulating Single-Use Carryout(plastic) Bags From: Gary Latshaw [mailto:glatshaw @ gmail.com] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 3:29 PM To: City Council Cc: bohle @mac.com; ceballosjulie @deanza.edu; eldridgejordan @yahoo.com; eranl @bigfoot.com; fredmorelio @yahoo.com; gotthereadingbug @yahoo.com; aurjeet @gurjeet.net; jechank @gmail.com; jkliger2000 @yahoo.com; ioanmarlowe @earthlink.net; kgould @adobe.com; manshu2006 @gmail.com; meg @jstub.com; midiere @mmaarch.com; pamsmith @pacbell.net; pearlc8 @msn.com; raaaaaydon @aol.com; rosetracy3 @sbcglobal.net; sbrobie @comcast.net; scottishl0 @hotmail.com; sinolean @gmail.com; skupapers @gmail.com; sotrt@aol.com; t milojkovic @yahoo.com; tejasgole @yahoo.com; tst @hotmail.com; varunpande @vahoo.com; vhy @excite.com; Victorlegge @yahoo.com; xrxl @yahoo.com; Frank Geefay; Adrien Salazar; Ana Maria Cherry; Anne Ng; anuradha munshi; Barbara; Bob Hogin; Brinda Kasi; Cheri Donnelly; Chris Zhang; Christina Williams; chuck barrritt; David Marsland; david sprouts; Debi Dunson; debrah; denise east; Elizabeth Sarmiento; Emily Kinner; Erin Cooke; Felicia Hwung; Gary Bailey; Gary Jones; Gary Latshaw; gregory anderson; helen waint; Jasmin Kayhour; Jim Yoke; Joan Dyer; John Bartas; Kenneth Fields; Kitt Kulkarmi; Kristal Caidoy; Laina Greene; Lisa Giefer; lisa liu; Manimala Kumar; Megan Fluke; Pamela Marino; Poovi Patel; Puja Balachander; Rick Kitson; Rose A. Grymes; sali schille; Saskia Adams; sastry kolachana; Shailee Samar; shailesh Sahasrabuddhe; Shirley Kinoshita; Susan Kirk; Tadas Nlarauskas; Thomas Wang; thorisa yap; Veronica Davis Subject: Support for Regulating Single-Use Carryout(plastic) E3ags Mayor Mahoney and Council members: I am writing as the Cupertino Cool-Cities co-chair and active member of the Sierra Club. I urge you to support the single-use-carryout-bag ordinance that will be before you on January 15th. Unfortunately, there is a panel discussion on Fracking the same evening, and I will not be at the council meeting to speak directly to you. We have a responsibility as a society to maintain a pristine and pure an environment. We should preserve the world for families of today and those of tomorrow. These bags are destructive to the environment, which must be preserved for future generations. No one like regulations. Regulations are annoying and they often appear to infringe unnecessarily on our rights as free citizens. However, we live on a crowded planet and what we do, however innocent or small an action may seem, often has detrimental cumulative. When smoking regulations first were introduced in the 1970s, there were protests by many individuals and legal actions by the cigarette companies. However over time the public became aware that smoking was unhealthy for the smoker and those who inhaled the secondhand smoke. I believe there are parallels in our situation today regarding plastic bags. Inevitably a fraction of the billions of one-use plastic bags is let loose into the environment where the bags become disruptive. Many agencies and companies bear the costs of cleaning out sewage lines and streams, and maintaining garbage-processing machinery, which has been clogged by plastic bags. Beyond the definable costs are the costs to our fellow creatures on the planet that are harmed by the bags. Sea turtles mistake the bags for food and choke on them. Sea Otters are suffocated. Even the giant whales are not immune. A Gervais beaked whale was found starved to death with ten pounds of twisted plastic in its stomach. 1 Along with approving the ordinance before you, I urge you to communicate through all means at your disposal the reasons for the ordinance and encourage the citizens to avoid the use of plastic bags even when they are legally allowed. Fight for Renewable Energies! Save the global ecology; create jobs; eliminate dependence on foreign oil; reduce military requirements Gary Latshaw, Ph.D. 408-499-3006 2 Brittany Morales _ CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 2:04 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Prevent plastic pollution in 20'3 Original Message From: litianyu @hotmail.coin [mailto:litianyu @hotma[l.com] Sent: Monday,January 14, 2013 2:02 PM To: Orrin Mahoney Subject: Prevent plastic pollution in 2013 Tianyu Li 2255 Showers Drive Mountain View, CA 94040-1277 January 14, 2013 Orrin Mahoney Dear Orrin Mahoney: Dear Mayor Mahoney and Councilmembers, Our creeks here in Cupertino and throughout the Bay Area are threatened daily by pollution. Everything from motor oil to pesticides to trash flow from our streets and into our waterways. Plastic bags and Styrofoam are not only some of the most common pollutants in our creeks, but they are also some of the easiest to prevent. I want to see the City of Cupertino play an active role in eliminating these ubiquitous threats to water quality in the Bay. I understand staff have been working on policies to address the serious litter problem in our waterways. I hope our city can join the dozens of Bay Area cities that have already banned Styrofoam and plastic bags and take a stand against plastic in the Bay. We can help lead other Santa Clara County cities to do the same. Please ban plastic bags and Styrofoam and make 2013 the year Cupertino protects the Bay. Sincerely, 1 Brittany Morales _ CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 1:26 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Plastic Bag Legislation in Cupertino From: Phil Rozenski [mailto:Phil.Rozenski@ahilexpoly.com] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 1:03 PM To: Gilbert Wong Subject: Plastic Bag Legislation in Cupertino Vice Mayor Wong, As an employee of Hilex Poly, an industry leading manufacturer and recycler of plastic bag and film products, I have been following the recent conversation in Cupertino to potentially ban plastic grocery bags. With an upcoming discussion on the issue, I wanted to share some information about the real impacts of bag bans and an alternative— recycling—that achieves the goal of reducing litter while protecting the 30,800 Americans employed by the plastic bag manufacturing and recycling industry, including nearly 2,000 Californians. Like you, our industry agrees that litter, in general, is a problem. But experience shows bag ordinances cripple green job growth while producing no benefits for the environment or consumers. My concern is that bag bans do not take into account that plastic bags are 100 percent recyclable, can contain recycled content (true closed-loop recycling) and can be reused for many household purposes as nine out of 10 Americans already do. Eliminating free plastic grocery bags forces consumers to use alternatives such as paper or cloth bags. Both options weigh more and take more energy to produce, contributing to greater emissions, not less. Additionally, some reusable bags have been found to contain harmful bacteria and viruses that pose health threats to consumers. Most importantly, implementing a bag ban would not address the issue of litter in a meaningful way. In fact, San Francisco reported plastic bags to be only 0.6 percent of litter before the City implemented a plastic bag ban. One year after the ban, plastic bag litter was actually reported to be 0.64 percent.A recent statement distributed by Environmental Resources Planning, a professional firm that conducts scientifically-based litter studies, noted that when litter studies are conducted by professionally trained staff rather than volunteers, plastic bag litter ranges between 0.5 percent and 2 percent of total litter collected. Put simply, banning plastic bags in Cupertino would: • Put nearly 2,000 manufacturing and recycling jobs in California at risk • Increase dependence on foreign oil • Increase global greenhouse gas emissions • Impose financial burdens on consumers and small businesses • Hinder successful recycling programs • Have minimal impact on the small fraction (less than 0.5 percent)of plastic bags that are part of the U.S. municipal solid waste stream Hilex Poly is committed to working with lawmakers like yourself to develop comprehensive recycling programs.Through our Bag-2-Bag program, we enable people to deposit their used plastic bags and wrap into bins at local retailers for recycling. In 2011 alone, Hilex recycled more than 35 million pounds of post-consumer plastic bags, sacks and wraps. I hope this information was helpful in describing why increased recycling serves as the best solution to some of the environmental issues we are facing as a nation. I ask that you please consider the alternatives to anti-bag laws in order to preserve consumer choice, small businesses,jobs and our industry. If you have any questions or would like to discuss the facts about plastic bags and the impacts of plastic bag legislation, please let me know; I am available to discuss this further with you at any time. v/r Philip R. Rozenski Director of Marketing and Sustainability 618 402-4244 phil.rozenski @hilexpoly.com Learn the facts about plastic bags at www.bagtheban.com Hilex Poly Co.,LLC 1780 Belt Way Drive St. Louis, MO 63114 This e-mail message and all documents which accompany it are intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which addressed, and may contain privileged or confidential information. Any unauthorized disclosure or distribution of this e-mail message is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail message in error, please notify the sender and delete this from all computers. • 2 Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 11:08 AM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Cupertino Bag Ban From: J G Archuleta [mailto:igarchuleta@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 11:08 AM To: City Council; Cheri Donnelly; Kathryn Cooke Subject: Cupertino Bag Ban January 14, 2013 Cupertino City Council 10300 Torre Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014 RE: Letter of Support for adoption of San Mateo Regional Reusable Bag Ordinance Dear Mayor Mayor Mahoney and Councilmembers, As an active member of The Central Coast Sanctuary Alliance, I respectfully request that the City of Cupertino adopt the San Mateo Regional Reusable Bag ordinance that would place a ban on single-use plastic bags coupled with a fee on all other single-use bags such as paper and compostable. This ordinance should include all grocery stores, pharmacies and retail stores within the City of Cupertino. We are all quite aware that plastic bags, which are not biodegradable, pose a serious environmental risk on land and within the marine environment. As stewards of the environment preserving the integrity of our local ecosystems becomes our responsibility. There are many alternatives to single-use plastic bags, such as reusable cloth bags or bags made from recycled products and the public has actively been learning how to adopt these items into their lifestyle. For these and other reasons, I supports a ban on single-use plastic bags coupled with a fee on all other single use bags within the City of Cupertino. We thank all local representatives for their time and energy spent on this issue and we look forward to this beneficial change happening quickly and effectively in Cupertino. Looking forward, J G Archuleta Brittany Morales _ CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 2:33 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Slides in support of a single use bag ban Attachments: Cupertino bag ban 1.15.13.zip From: Laura Kasa [mailto:IkasaAsaveourshores.orq] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 2:21 PM To: City Council Subject: Slides in support of a single use bag ban City Councilmembers, I have been working on single-use bag ordinances locally for three years now. Save Our Shores has extensive data about the plastic bags that we collect in our cleanups. Since a ban on plastic bags went into effect in the County of Santa Cruz in March 2012, the number of plastic bags collected during our cleanups dropped from 19 to 8 per cleanup. My slides attached help to explain why Cupertino should pass a ban on single-use bag and I am happy to show them at the council meeting on Tuesday night. Warm regards, Laura Laura Jean Kasa Executive Director Save Our Shores 345 Lake Avenue, Suite A Santa Cruz, CA 95062 (831)462-5660 ext. 8# www.saveourshores.org 1 CC Item # 15 1/15/2013 Save Our Shore Cupertino City Council Meeting Why Ban Plastic Bags? Laura Kasa January 15, 2013 rw " illot.„ 7 .-c ,gr \ vile - li - it - - t •j' / '" �,.. t l a3�' y,w 1 ; _,• ,, 1- ik ter` 1• 7.7- - _ '--... yt war • _ •r.,;,.� ;, am' ,'C`! 60,000 plastic bags discarded in the US every 5 seconds 1 • CC Item # 15 1/15/2013 Save Our Shores Cleanup Data 2012 Since 2007: •Over 129,000 pounds of trash and 32,000 pounds of recycle collected •Over 35,000 plastic bags and over 343,000 cigarette butts collected IV air A ilw, iii 011 AMIE - .TW., wtor mit...‘ _ r " W' +rte I'.' '. ,, - ^a. '• Generation and Recovery of U. S. Plastics 26 2, 20 .-.7 1r Generation F 16 12 s Recoiti 1960 1965 1970 1975 1990 1965 1990 1995 ..• .. 2 CC Item # 15 1/15/2013 Fact: Trash Is Dangerous to Marine Animals IrEtikailrillil,,: „ . PP —∎s v •ry. • i 1 1°4.1 '1911/1 k4\ . . " -- _ .. Entanglement...plastics i n,in 'r - , r � b \ • F • i IWvl ri •tyiit- { 44,?,tee ∎ " ., 1 Bird: 3 CC Item # 15 1/15/2013 Ingestion & Suffocation... What does this look like? Turtles often mistake plastic ' '• ‘'°••*,, bags for jellyfish r A mother otter tries to free her pup from a plastic bag in Elkhorn Slough 4 CC Item # 15 1/15/2013 Plastic Bag Bans • 35,000 bags collected in cleanups by SOS • Harmful to wildlife, clog stormdrains, very costly to cleanup, easily blow into streams • Reasonable alternatives exist • County and City of Santa Cruz, Watsonville, Capitola, Monterey and Carmel have all passed bans in 2012 • SOS counted shoppers. Before ban 10% using reusable bags. 30 days after ban — 80%111111 5 Brittany Morales CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Karen B. Guerin Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 1:27 PM To: Brittany Morales Subject: FW: Bag ban Issue From: Ned & Rusty Britt [mailto:nrbritt©comcast.net] Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 12:52 PM To: Orrin Mahoney; Gilbert Wong; Barry Chang; Mark Santoro; Rod Sinks Subject: Bag ban Issue Dear Members of City Council, After attending the Jan. 9 meeting for Cupertino citizens to express their concerns in favor or against the proposed ban on bags, I have a few additional thoughts. The first question is: What if we don't ban bags? What can the state do to us? I believe that city, state, and federal policies are not trying to make the citizens' lives better by telling us which light bulbs to use and now banning the bags given out by businesses for the convenience of shoppers. Reusable bags get dirty. There are case studies showing that reusable bags can pose a health risk due to mold, bacteria and yeast. I submitted a paper last night listing studies that have found that reusable bags are a serious health risk. The reason we haven't heard more about the food-borne infections is that it is difficult to target culprit bags breeding in the trunks of our cars and pulled out to be used again to continue contaminating food. Cupertino has an opportunity to stand up against the ban on bags and rule in favor of citizen consumers and businesses. The ban on bags costs Cupertino in lost sales taxes and business. Many of us shoppers choose not to shop in Sunnyvale and San Jose because of their ban on bags making shopping more inconvenient. A new Safeway will be opening in Cupertino at the corner of DeAnza Blvd. and Homestead Rd. moving from their Sunnyvale location of Hollenbeck and Homestead. This is a great opportunity to welcome a new business to our city with no requirements about banning plastic or paper bags and the additional record-keeping that accompanies that ban. Cupertino can become a leader in having programs in schools, organizations, and publications educating people about using bags wisely and being good stewards of our world. I hope that you will seriously consider not banning bags ir.. Cupertino. Rusty Britt Rusty Britt 20850 Pepper Tree Lane Cupertino, CA 95014 Phone: 408 255-5175 FAX: 408 255-4320 408 656-9737(Rusty) eMail: nrbrittcomcast.net 1 Karen B. Guerin CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: @Y a an a4 o 9 ahoo.com Y Y Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2013 9:17 PM To: Orrin Mahoney Subject: Prevent plastic pollution in 2013 Anya Kroth 15042 Montebello Rd Cupertino, CA 95014-5427 January 13, 2013 Orrin Mahoney Dear Orrin Mahoney: Dear Mayor Mahoney and Councilmembers, Our creeks here in Cupertino and throughout the Bay Area are threatened daily by pollution. Everything from motor oil to pesticides to trash flow from our streets and into our waterways. Plastic bags and Styrofoam are not only some of the most common pollutants in our creeks, but they are also some of the easiest to prevent. I want to see the City of Cupertino play an active role in eliminating these ubiquitous threats to water quality in the Bay. I understand staff have been working on policies to address the serious litter problem in our waterways. I hope our city can join the dozens of Bay Area cities that have already banned Styrofoam and plastic bags and take a stand against plastic in the Bay. We can help lead other Santa Clara County cities to do the same. Please ban plastic bags and Styrofoam and make 2013 the year Cupertino protects the Bay. Sincerely, Anya Kroth 1 • CC 1/15/13 Item #15 A CLEAN WATER 4 ACTION January 10, 2013 San Francisco Office 111 New Montgomery St. Mayor Orrin Mahoney Suite 600 San Francisco, CA 94105-3605 Cupertino City Hall Tel:415-369-9160 10300 Torre Avenue Fax:415-369-9180 Cupertino, CA 95014 RE: Support City Action to Ban Plastic Bags and Require Stores Charge for Paper Dear Mayor Mahoney: On behalf of Clean Water Action, I write to express our support of city actions to ban plastic retail and grocery bags and required that stores charge for paper bags. The free distribution of single-use disposal bags burdens local taxpayers (for litter control costs), unnecessarily consumes scarce natural resources, creates plastic pollution, and adds to the blight on neighborhoods created by litter. In short, it is a practice that must come to an end, especially where there are reusable alternatives. Plastic bags contribute significantly to local litter problems and cost taxpayers a lot of money. The litter audit performed by the City of San Jose revealed that bags (including retail and non-retail bags) were the third largest component of the street litter problem, after fast food and a large amount of miscellaneous litter. Plastic retail bags comprised 4.9% of the overall litter problem.' While Clean Water Action strongly supports reducing the quantity of fast food packaging as it is the most common form of street litter and most significant component of marine debris,2 bags are a good place to start to try to reduce street litter and marine debris. Californians use an estimated 19 billion single-use plastic bags every year.3 Managing those bags when they become waste is costly. The state spends $25 million annually to clean up and landfill these littered bags and this figure does not even include the over$300 million that local governments continually to spend to clean littered streets and waterways.4 The City of San Francisco estimated that to clean up, recycle, and landfill plastic bags costs the city 17 cents per bag.5 The City of San Francisco delayed passing a bag ban to give the bag industry time to establish recycling programs at grocery stores as an alternative option. After two years, City of San Jose,"Targeted Litter Assessment 2009" 'California Coastal Commission(2006)."Eliminating Land-based Discharges of Marine Debris in California:A Plan of Action from The Plastic Debris Project." California Integrated Waste Management Board,(Available at:www.zerowaste.ca.gov/PlasticBags/default.htm). Id 'City of San Francisco Department of the Environment,"Bag Cost Analysis,"November 18,2004. (www.ci.sf.ca.us/site/sfenvironment page.aso?id=28374).Retrieved 1/5/09. 1010 Vermont Ave.,NW,Ste 1100,Washington,DC 20005-4918 1 Phone 202.895.0420 Fax 202.895.0438 I cwa@a cleanvvater.or,2 www.cleanwateraction.org there were no measurable results to report. The City took action in 2006 and banned plastic bags. The lesson is that California cities can not recycle our way out of this problem. This chart shows the rate of plastics generation in California between Million Tons per Year 1960 and 1999, as compared to the 26 rate of recovery and recycling.6 22 Less than 5% of these bags are �eneratton 20 g 18 currently being recycled7; the rest 16 end up in landfills or as litter, 14 clogging storm drain systems, and tz make their way to waterways and I0- 8 the ocean where they have become 6 a persistent threat to wildlife and present multiple threats to the Kern mo marine ecosystem. 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 Source: . It is estimated that 60-80% of all marine debris, and 90% of floating debris is plastic.8 Plastics are so durable that no one actually knows how long it will take them to fully break down. Current research shows that they continue to break down become microplastics that are ingested by small marine life-this means that many marine creatures are becoming plasticized- as well humans may. Over 267 species worldwide have been impacted by large plastic litter such as plastic bags.9 Bans work to end a litter problem. In San Francisco's 2008 litter audit, plastic retail bags, which had been banned for several years, were approximately 0.5% of the overall large litter identified (as compared to San Jose's 4.9% for plastic retail in 2009). Charging for a product, rather than giving it out for free, can be a successful strategy for encouraging consumers to live without it. Ireland has demonstrated that a fee of 22 euro cents ($0.33 USD) on plastic carryout bags effectively deters consumer use and plastic bag litter, and that such fee rates must be appropriately determined to keep rate of non-use steady. 10 Since placing a fee on plastic bags in 2002, plastic bag usage and litter in Ireland has decreased by over 90%.11 It is important to provide customers with a recycled content and recyclable paper bag at the checkout counter, in case a customer forgets his reusable bag, but passing the cost of the bag on to the customer is an effective way to change behavior over time. 6 California Integrated Waste Management Board(2003)"Plastics White Paper:Optimizing Plastics Use,Recycling and Disposal in California," http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/publications/Plastics/43203008.pdf Id.,US EPA 2005 Characterization of Municipal Solid Waste,Table 7. 8 California Coastal Commission(2006)."Eliminating Land-based Discharges of Marine Debris in California:A Plan of Action from The Plastic Debris Project." 9 N.Wallace."Debris entanglement in the marine environment:a review"(985)pp.259-277 in:R.S.Shomura and H.O.Yoshida(eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop on the Fate and Impact of Marine Debris,U.S.Department of Commerce,NOAA Technical Memorandum. NMFS,NOAA-TM-NMFS-SWFC-5. 19 As of July I,2007 the fee was 22 Eurocents=33 U.S.cents according to 2007 exchange rates 11 Ireland Dept of the Environment,Heritage&Local Government:www.environ.ie/en/Environment/Waste/PlasticBaps 2 Changing behavior is what a bag ban is all about. The United States represents 5%of the world's population but consumes 27% of the world's resources. This country is the architect of the throw-away society- the pandemic search for convenience at the expense of the environment. While the European Union is busy strategizing on how to get the EU's consumption of the world's resources from 14%to a sustainable level by 2050,12 our national leaders are busy trying to protect the American way of life- a model of consumption. Action in the United States is coming from the ground up. The City of Cupertino should join other California jurisdictions in sending a message that we CAN do things differently. Already over 50 California jurisdictions - including San Francisco, Oakland, Marin County, San Jose, the County of San Mateo, Daly City, Belmont, South San Francisco, Colma, Foster City, Portola Valley, the County of Los Angeles, Fairfax, and Malibu- have joined China, parts of India, Ireland and many other places across the world in taking action to ban the bag and support re-usables. Clean Water Action and our 55,000 members in California urge you to do the same. Sincerely, Miriam F. Gordon California Director Clean Water Action Cc: Councilmembers Wong, Chang, Santoro and Sinks 12 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/escp_en.htm =; • CC 1/15/13 Item #15 From: Joseph Sze [mailto:josephs609 @gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday,January 15, 2013 1:25 AM To: City of Cupertino Environmental Division Subject: Re: I have read information from the residential meeting regarding bag ban Also please remove bullet five which is "Place a charge on bags; don't regulate them." I did not say that. On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 1:22 AM, Joseph Sze<josephs609( gmail.com>wrote: Dear sir or madem, I heard the sound system was cut off. Though I am glad someone actually took notes. However I would like to point out some things inaccurate in the notes to correct them. on the six bullets instead of 3-5% litter it is 0.3%-0.5%will be banned. On the ninth bullet it should be Hawaii being in a prestine environment thought about it longer as taken its time and concluded to approve a measure with ample time (2-3 years) for grocers to switch to biodegradable bags by 2014 on big Island 2015 in Honolulu. On the twelve bullet It should be San Francisco Implemented a ban in 2007, overall plastic litter went up. Litter in the category of non retail bagging material alone went up 3.2% due to use of thicker plastic bags Joseph From: Garik Iosilevskv To: City of Cupertino Environmental Division Subject: Bag Ban Date: Monday,January 14,2013 4:30:02 PM To Whom it may concern: I am a Cupertino shopper, a Sierra Club Activist, and a San Jose resident. Regarding the proposed bag ordinance in the city of Cupertino, I think that it is absolutely necessary for this change to happen throughout our county in order to protect our local watersheds and our precious marine habitats. It would be foolish to aggressively oppose such ordinances if you care even the slightest bit about the sustainability of our marine resources. I unfortunately can not attend the meeting tomorrow night, however I am sending this in hopes that it can make even the slightest impact on the decision making process for this bag ban. As a San Jose resident, I have not been inconvenienced by the bag ban passed over a year ago. The transition to no more plastic bags was very smooth, and it seems that most San Jose shoppers are not affected by this. I see people carrying reusable bags, and paper bags are still offered. Many stores in San Jose have still been giving plastic bags, although they are the type that is deemed environmentally safe, due to the thickness of the plastic. Single-use plastic bags are not the most sustainable way for shoppers to carry their products. If we want to have a more sustainable future, the rest of the cities in our county need to follow the lead of San Jose and create laws that do not allow these bags to be distributed at retail stores. Cupertino now has a chance to make a smart decision for the future of our planet. I support the bag ban in Cupertino, I hope that the right decision is made. Best Regards, Garik Iosilevsky Administrative Manager Santa Clara County Recycling Hotline www.recyclestuff.org (408) 924-5453 City of Cupertino Proposed Reusable Bag Ordinance Resident Meeting January 9,2013 7:00 p.m. RESIDENT COMMENTS City staff in attendance:Cheri Donnelly,Alex Wykoff,and Kathryn Cooke Comments: Andrea Ventura: San Jose resident and Affiliate of"Clean Water Action" • Everyone has the right to a cleaner environment. • All rate payers are forced to pay for plastic bag pollution,not just the bag users. • It is not just plastic bags that are polluting the environment. • People have evolved to become a"throw-away"society. • As a resident and shopper in San lose,I have never observed a store apologize for having to charge for bags. • Have observed very little push back from shoppers. • Reusable bags are stronger than thin plastic or paper carryout bags. • Reusable bags on average tend to be clean. • Plastic bags aren't as strong as reusable bags • Have observed plastic bags break. • Remembers when there were no plastic bags,people used canvas bags and it worked. • We should be going back to reusable canvas bags as they are more sustainable. Carle Hylkema: Cupertino Resident • Does consider the impact on the earth. • Is a firm supporter of reusable bags. • Not prepared to have to carry reusable bags. • Is a user of reusable bags. • We should be treated like adults,not children,and be provided with a choice of what type of bags to use. • We are not like children where if you don't play with a toy properly you take the toys away from the child. • Educate don't regulate. • We are intelligent adults that make wise choices;we should be able to have choices. Randy Hylkema: Cupertino Resident • Why are we discouraging paper? • Only 0.3%of landfill waste is made up of paper. • Everything uses resources,why is there a focus on plastic bags. • It is not the job of the City to decide what type of bags people use. • I reuse my paper bags. • Laura Kasa:Santa Cruz Resident and Affiliate of"Save Our Shores" • Our organization measures current data regarding reusable bag use. • 35,000 plastic bags were cleaned up by Save Our Shores. • There was a four year attempt at a BYOB campaign that encouraged and educated people to bring their own bags which did not work. • Save Our Shores conducted a study by sitting outside of a store and counted the number of reusable bags entering,10%of shoppers brought their own bag before a ban,after a ban and a 10 cent fee,80%of shoppers started bringing their bags into the store. • The ten cent fee is a behavior trigger that makes people stop and think,"Do I really need a bag?" • Landfill space is limited. • You can't reuse thin plastic bags [for shopping]. • We have to be responsible stewards of the environment by making simple changes. Jennifer Griffin:Cupertino Resident • Shops in 5 different cities. • Sunnyvale and San Jose have gone"offline." • Logistic issues as a result of bans in some cities. • People will probably start shoplifting and stores will put money lost from shoplifting back into the price of products. • As result prices of products will start rising. • People will bring a bag into the store and be accused of stealing. • I-low will we know if prices will stay the same?Who will monitor the stores to make sure this doesn't happen? • Isn't Safeway offended to see all the Trader Joe bags coming into their stores? • I have seen people put meat and fish (unwrapped) onto the checkout conveyor belt and employees have to use alcohol to sanitize the checkout counters. Shirley Kinoshita:Cupertino Resident,Block Leader,and Affiliate of SM Neighborhood Association • Applaud the City for proposing a bag ordinance. • Strongly believe in it. • A member of Cool Cities and as an organization not officially in favor,would like to know more about the ordinance. • Provides child care to family in San Francisco and have seen a positive change in the community[since the ordinance was adopted]. • Bottled water is also a serious problem: 87%of water bottles go directly into the trash and are not recycled. • United Nations Association Member-susta:inable committee,we should not engage in behaviors that inflict harm on the rest of the world. • We need to change our lifestyles. Dean Peterson:Director of the San Mateo County Health Department • There will be no increase in the cost of prices;stores are not allowed to increase prices do to loss via theft • Insurance takes care of lost revenue from shoplifting. • To date,there has been no increase in the price of goods as a result of bans. Rusty Britt:Cupertino Resident • Keeping records of bags for three years,and having records available for the City inspector seems like too much. • What does the City want to do with that information? • See attached written document(comments were read orally to the group). Joseph Sze:San Jose Resident and Affiliate of"Stop the Bag Ban" • Paper bags only account for 0.03%of landfill waste. • Keep America Beautiful and other non-profits have reported more litter after ordinances have taken effect. • Other litter such as plastic garbage bags are on the rise. • Why not provide incentives,similar to what was done with eco-foam? • Place a charge on bags; don't regulate them. • Only 3-5% of litter will be banned,what about the rest of the litter? • Lots of other packaging methods are still allowed and can be seen as litter,such as a pasta bags and snack wrappers. • There are other alternatives like biodegradable bags. • Hawaii,a state that is much closer to the gyre and ocean has thought about it longer, and has taken longer to act on this issue. • Plastic bag bans are a fad,similar to pop music. • Opinions other organizations have,such as Save the Bay and the Sierra Club are one sided. • San Francisco implemented a ban in 2007,litter went up 3.2%due to use of thicker plastic bags. • People bag garbage less. • SCWPPP states garbage is the biggest issue and as a result of people not having bags to bag their garbage,more garbage will fly out of garbage trucks. • San Jose is losing business to cities like Cupertino and Milpitas. • One type of plastic bag waste goes down,another type of plastic goes up. - 1 • 16,. 5 go:6 i-er . . . . . - . • . ______________ _—____OlActfialis__Amtif_Stzreifieftiei.44&_et. 32A-413._:. • — 11-1.411ni .a. .sloesitft* #4-T itt04441fA ityktree . fidttit4le.e erf-____14LUAAVAAM(.. ....._ . ---------------;---------, • "'____MILS47 - a_eht_Ifnin(LIARYI. 6.48S0 0%4. 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