Plastic Bags Abolished in Calabasas Grocery Stores

Bring your own bags beginning July 1, 2011

By: Mickey Nathans

On February 9, 2011, the Calabasas City Council passed Ordinance No. 2011-282. As of July 1, 2011, shoppers will no longer receive disposable plastic bags while shopping at Calabasas grocery stores and are encouraged to use reusable shopping bags whenever possible. Under a new law passed by the City Council in February 2011, Calabasas is prohibiting disposable plastic shopping bags in two stages:

On July 1, 2011, grocery stores with $2 million or more in sales and retail stores with 10,000 square feet or more that have pharmacies will stop offering disposable bags to customers. This category includes the four major supermarkets in the City (Albertsons, Gelson’s, Maddy’s Market, and Ralphs) and Rite Aid in the Commons.
Smaller drug stores, convenience food stores, smaller retail stores and grocers must stop offering disposable plastic bags by January 1, 2012. Please note that small plastic bags will still be available in stores for fruits and vegetables.

The Calabasas ordinance is modeled after a plastic bag ordinance recently passed by Los Angeles County and backed by a comprehensive Environmental Impact Report conducted by the County. Calabasas has joined the growing ranks of municipalities encouraging residents to bring reusable bags when shopping.

Under the terms of the new law, stores will have reusable bags available for sale and will also offer recyclable paper bags for 10 cents each in lieu of customers bringing their reusable bags or simply carrying items purchased without a bag. The fees collected from bag sales will only go towards helping stores comply with the new law. Each store will provide quarterly reports to the City detailing fees collected and their reusable bag promotional efforts during that period. Lower income residents who participate in the California Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children program will receive either reusable bags or recyclable paper bags for free.

Residents are encouraged to bring reusable bags with them when shopping before July to get in the habit of ditching the disposable plastic bags that pollute our environment and constitute a high percentage of litter across the country. For more information about reusable bags and this ordinance, please visit www.cityofcalabasas.com.

Plastic Bag Facts

According to research by Save the Bay, Californians use about 19 billion plastic bags per year.
On average, a person will use a disposable plastic carryout bag for 12 minutes.
It can take up to 1000 years for a plastic bag to decompose.
An estimated .3% to 5% of plastic bags are recycled at a cost that is much higher than the cost of producing new plastic bags.