Plastics industry pushes back on new California bag ban, urges EPR instead

California, the first state to ban single-use thin retail plastic bags a decade ago, now wants to go a step further and eliminate the thicker, recycled-content plastic shopping bags that replaced them.

But bag makers and recyclers are pushing back, saying a new proposal from some state lawmakers would favor paper bags, eliminate a market for 180 million pounds of recycled plastic and could, inadvertently, increase the amount of plastic used in the state.

At a recent hearing on legislation proposed by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, a plastic bag industry representative said the bill would gut California's current law, which requires that the thicker, reusable plastic bags have 40 percent post-consumer content.

"If the bill passes, the thick recyclable bags mandated by the state would cease to exist," said Phil Rozenski, interim director of the American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance and an executive at bag maker Novolex Holdings Inc.

"Passing the bill would trigger increased plastic use, eliminate the use of 183 million pounds of recycled content, increase carbon footprint, move jobs out of California and increase the cost of groceries here in the state," he told a March 19 hearing. "I can't emphasize enough this bill is structured not to reduce plastic, but to substitute it with a different form."

Rozenski and other industry representatives said during the hearing in the state Assembly that the bill could lead to more nonwoven polypropylene reusable bags, which use more plastic, usually contain little recycled materials and can't be recycled in California.

But lawmakers behind the new legislation say it's necessary because the state's 2014 ban on thin plastic bags had the unintended consequence of increasing the amount of plastic the state used as stores shifted to thicker gauge, recycled-content bags that consumers paid 10 cents for and were designed to be reusable.

"It is a super simple bill," said Bauer-Kahan. "It gets rid of those thick plastic bags in grocery stores that theoretically aren't supposed to be disposable, but we know are disposable, and replaces them with paper bags.

"If anyone like me shops at Trader Joe's, that's the future, paper only, under this bill," she said.

Her proposal follows a January report from an environmental group that found structural problems in the design of the 2014 ban meant that Californians actually used more plastic in bags after the ban went into effect.

That's because residents mostly treated the thicker plastic bags, which were marketed as reusable, as single use, according to the report from the California Public Interest Research Group, which argued that well-designed plastic bag bans work by reducing litter and pollution, particularly if they have a fee on paper bags.

Californians threw away 4.08 tons of plastic bags per 1,000 residents in 2014, before the ban, but that rose to 5.89 tons by 2021, the report said.

That led lawmakers to say the new bill would fix those problems.

"It's time to improve on California's original plastic bags ban and do it right this time by completely eliminating plastic bags from being used at grocery stores," said Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, the author of a companion bill in that chamber.

But plastics industry representatives at the hearing said the legislature should drop this bill and instead use the extended producer responsibility law the state passed in 2022, known as Senate Bill 54, to improve the recycling and waste management of plastic bags.

"We do think there is a robust law in the state, SB 54, and we think that would be the solution," said Bruce Magnani, a California lobbyist speaking at the hearing for the Association of Plastic Recyclers, The Recycling Partnership and the Western Plastics Association.

As well, Roxanne Spiekerman, sales director and vice president of public affairs at recycler PreZero US, echoed the point that bags should be part of SB 54, and said paper bags touted as alternatives use more energy in both their pulping and repulping process.

Integrating plastic bags into SB 54 would "make sure that we have a much wider solution for all plastics and flexibles and bags," she said. "That's going to solve a much wider problem."

In February, PreZero said it was selling its plastics recycling facility in Jurupa Valley, Calif., to resin maker LyondellBasell Industries.

Plastic bag and film recycling has had challenges in California.

A commission appointed by the Legislature in early 2022 recommended that state officials crack down on what it said was misleading labeling about recyclability of bags and film packaging.

The state's attorney general, Rob Bonta, sent a letter to seven plastic bag makers later that year demanding that they substantiate their recyclability claims.

At the hearing, industry officials pointed to unintended negative side effects from a bag ban in New Jersey, which they said increased plastic used six-fold as consumers shifted to heavier polypropylene bags that are designed to be reused but are typically used only a few times.

A study funded by ARPBA said the typical PP nonwoven bag, which became the dominant alternative in New Jersey, use 15 times as much plastic and have five times as much greenhouse gas impact per bag compared with thin-film single-use bags.

"Studies have shown that on average, these non-woven bags are only used two to three times before they're discarded," Rozenski said. "They're simply not used the number of times needed for them to be more environmentally beneficial. They become the new single-use bag."

But Bauer-Kahan said her bill is different than the New Jersey ban and predicted it would not have the unintended impact of increasing plastic use.

"The New Jersey law did not allow paper, so they were replacing plastic bags with just the reusable plastic bags," she said. "We are not doing that.

"There will be less plastic. There will be more paper, and that paper will be recycled, and we'll have a high recycled content, although like I said, we're working on what that content will look like," she said.

Bauer-Kahan said she has been meeting with the paper industry to work on standards for the paper bags.

Another lawmaker on the committee, Assemblymember Devon Mathis, R-Visalia, told Bauer-Kahan during the hearing that he was concerned about the durability of the 100 percent recycled content paper bags called for in the legislation.

He said he had paper manufacturing in his district, and said he would support the bill as a co-sponsor if his concerns could be resolved.

The legislation also has support from the California Grocers Association, which testified in favor of Bauer-Kahan's plan at the hearing and noted that it backed the plastic bag ban in 2014.