New NYS plastic bag reduction, reuse and recycling law for retailers

It is definitely a step in the right direction. Stats from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) state that each year, Americans throw away more than 100 billion plastic bags and less than 1% are recycled. We all know that the bags end up as litter, in the landfills and in the waterways. The recycling of these single-use plastic bags decreases the danger of the plastic bags coming into contact with wildlife that ingest or are strangled by them, and using recycled bags to make new bags reduces our demand on virgin plastics and therefore our demand for oil. On December 14, 2008, Governor Paterson signed the Plastic Bag Reduction, Reuse and Recycling Act into law and it went into effect on January 1. This new law affects retail stores that provide plastic carryout bags to its customers as a result of a product sale and requires that stores with 10,000 s/f or more of retail space and chains of five or more stores with greater than 5,000 s/f of retail space comply. Retailers that fall into this category will have to implement the following: * Establish an at-store plastic bag recycling program. Store needs to provide collection bins and make it easy for consumers to return their bags, and most stores will be willing to accept not just their bags but other plastic bags such as newspaper bags, dry cleaning bags, plastic produce, bread and cereal bags etc. as long as all food residue is removed. * Ensure that collected plastic bags are recycled. Stores have to contract with a waste/recycling hauler and get assurances that the bags are properly recycled. The bags can't be disposed of as solid waste and they can't be used for fuel in conversion to energy. They will be made into new products like composite lumber, trash can liners or new plastic bags. * Label all plastic bags. The bags must be labeled as required by NYSDEC with "Please Return to a Participating Store for Recycling" or under NYC Local Law 1 of 2008 "Please reuse or recycle at a participating store" is acceptable as well. DEC also has a specific label requirement if the bag is compostable. Any other labeling has to get DEC approval. * Keep record on their program. Stores or their agents are required to maintain records describing the collection, transport and recycling of plastic bags for at least three years. The records have to include the weight of plastics collected and where they were recycled. * Sell reusable bags. Stores are required to offer reusable bags to their customers for purchase and allow the use of reusable shopping bags. The store will be incurring additional revenue from the sale of the reusable bags which are usually sold at a nominal cost, and they have the extra added marketing bonus of customers using their bag for other errands. The law does not eliminate the availability of free plastic bags. The trend in Europe and China is to ultimately ban plastic bags, particularly single-use bags. Corporations becoming more sustainable and environmentally responsible such as IKEA started charging 5 cents per bag for plastic two years ago, and eliminated plastic bags completely in October. The alternative for customers was to either bring in their own bags or buy $0.59 reusable bags from IKEA. Whole Foods completely phased out plastic bags across the company in 2008. Then there are stores like Costco which never provided bags to begin with and people adapted. They don't expect bags when they check out and it doesn't stop them from shopping at Costco. The details on the NYS Plastic Bag Reduction, Reuse and Recycling Act are available on the NYSDEC website at the link http://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/50034.html and the American Chemistry Council provides a website with more information on Plastic Bag Recycling at the link http://www.plasticbagrecycling.org/00.0/ Terese Kinsley, P.E., LEED AP, is senior project manager for P.W. Grosser Consulting, Inc., Bohemia, N.Y.