By Philip Sean Curran
RED BANK – Plastic bags, the kind used at the point of sale in grocery stores and other retailers, would be banned in Red Bank starting next year based on a proposed ordinance the borough council will introduce later this month.
If adopted as expected, the measure would see Red Bank join about 25 other municipalities around the state that have taken such a step. Environmental activists have criticized plastic bags for being a source of pollution, especially in the ocean.
“We need to start evolving and thinking globally and acting locally,” said councilwoman Kate Triggiano, the former head of the municipal environmental commission. “We have the power to enact environmental change in our town that is really needed.”
Triggiano, a Democrat, said it was “time” for Red Bank, a community that runs along the Navesink River, to create the new law. Lambertville and Little Silver are among the New Jersey communities that have already banned plastic bags.
“In our ordinance, we were very careful to explain why there’s an environmental and economical need for us to do these things at a town level,” she said.
The ordinance exempts plastic bags used by dry cleaners or by medical providers. Produce bags in supermarkets also will be exempt.
“We really took a lot of caution and care to make sure that the language was very specific, that this would specifically (be for) plastic bags that are given at point of sale,” Triggiano said.
The ordinance also bans Styrofoam single-use containers and says merchants may only provide straws upon a customer’s request, she said. But like with the provisions dealing with bags, there are exemptions there, too, including Styrofoam containers for packaged meat.
Triggiano has spearheaded the ordinance. As part of her work, she met with business groups, the Red Bank Business Alliance, Red Bank RiverCenter and the Red Bank Environmental Commission. Their input was incorporated into the ordinance that borough council will consider.
“The genesis behind this is we’ve been thinking about it for a very long time,” said Nancy Blackwood, vice chairwoman of the environmental commission. “And then as other towns have been implementing bans, we decided to get started on it.”
The borough council is scheduled to introduce the measure at its July 24 meeting, followed by a second reading and an up-or-down vote at a subsequent meeting.
“So overall, I think it’s probably a good thing definitely in the long run, obviously for the environment and therefore for Red Bank,” RiverCenter executive director James Scavone said. “And I think as long as they continue to be open to discussion with the business community about how to solve what some of the tougher situations might be, I think it’ll be fine. And they seem very open to doing that.”
If approved, the regulations would take effect in September 2020, giving merchants enough time to exhaust their current supply of plastic bags and Styrofoam containers.
“After taking input from the businesses and other towns that have already passed these things, a year seems to be more than reasonable,” Triggiano said.
Once in effect, the ordinance would be enforced by the municipal code department. Violators would get an initial written warning with subsequent offenses carrying monetary fines of up to $1,500.
The borough also looked at what other New Jersey towns have done with their bag ordinances and borrowed from them in crafting Red Bank’s version. The state Legislature is also considering banning plastic bags, but so far, Trenton has not acted.
“So the one benefit was that so many people kind of pioneered these sorts of ordinances that we were able to look through and sort of craft what we thought was best for Red Bank,” Triggiano said.
“It’s long overdue,” said Amy Goldsmith, New Jersey director of Clean Water Action, at the Red Bank Council meeting July 3. “I think the delay has actually been good because, as we keep moving along, towns are passing better and better ordinances.”
In lieu of plastic bags, merchants could offer paper bags as one possible alternative or customers could bring reusable bags with them.
“I know there’s lots of alternatives out there to different products,” Scavone said. “Some are cheaper, some are probably more expensive. So I think each individual business is probably going to have to decide what’s right for them.”
“Well, I think there’s going to be a lot of education for consumers to carry their own bags,” Blackwood said, adding that it could “increase demand for paper, which has its own environmental impact as well.”
“There’s already a lot of restaurants and eateries that are using paper goods for takeout anyway,” said Ayca User, the past president of the business alliance. “So I think it’s going to be a smooth transition.”
The American Progressive Bag Alliance, a lobbying group for the plastic bag industry, opposes bag bans. On its website, the organization said that “when consumers are forced to use replacement bags, which are often made of thicker, heavier plastic, that contributes more to waste than the typical plastic grocery bag.” The group notes that plastic bags can be recycled and reused.
In April, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law a ban on plastic bags, effective March 2020, with some exceptions. New York became the third state, after California and Hawaii, to ban plastic bags.
