Grocery Bag Fee Could Take Effect

Berkeley city officials are gauging reactions to a possible citywide fee on plastic and paper grocery bags, but the response from Berkeley residents has been ambivalent so far.

An online survey administered by Mayor Tom Bates' office in August determined that of the 165 respondents, 43 percent were initially in favor of the surcharge and 44 percent were opposed to it. Fifty-eight percent found the topic worthy of further study by the city.

If implemented, the bag fee, designed to reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfills, could run up to 17 cents per bag.

Although Berkeley already disposes of 50 percent of its waste without using landfills, the fee could increase that amount to 75 percent by 2010, according to Cisco DeVries, Bates's chief of staff. On average, other cities nationwide only divert 25 percent of their waste away from landfills, DeVries said.

DeVries said the city is trying to reduce the use of plastic bags, which are especially costly to dispose of because they are difficult to recycle. According to City Councilmember Kriss Worthington, most of the Bay Area's plastic waste is shipped to landfills in other countries.

"The city is looking at a whole range of options to reduce waste and especially to reduce plastic," DeVries said. "It's an expensive problem for the city and we want to figure out what to do."

City Councilmember Betty Olds supported the idea, saying that people need to be more environmentally aware and reuse their bags. She said a fee of around 10 cents could be an effective reminder to do so.

"At the grocery store, there's a small group of us that still bring our own bags, but it's getting smaller and smaller," Olds said. "We've got to do something to bring this to public attention."

However, many said plastic bags are not a major environmental hazard and oppose the idea of fees on grocery bags.

"I personally wouldn't think that plastic bags from groceries are a number one pollutant to the environment," said Safeway shopper and UC Berkeley sophomore Michael Greenbaum. "There are a lot of things that are probably a bigger deal, and to charge people two bucks extra every time they go to the grocery store for this is pretty stupid."

Currently, there are no U.S. cities that charge a fee on grocery bags.

Berkeley city officials were inspired by a 17-cent grocery bag fee proposed last year by the San Francisco Department of the Environment, according to DeVries. The revenue from the San Francisco fee would go towards better recycling and disposal efforts.

DeVries emphasized that the potential fee has not yet materialized into a proposal, and that at this stage the city is exploring different ideas.

"More than anything else, we want to start a conversation with the community about some of the choices that we face," he said.

Local grocery stores in the California Grocers Association could not be reached for comment.

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