BAG IT!

On March 1, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plastic bag ban will go into effect, making New York the eighth state in the country to ban single-use plastic bags.

Cuomo, who signed the legislation on Earth Day, April 22 of last year, said at the time: “You see plastic bags hanging in trees, blowing down the streets, in landfills and in our waterways, and there is no doubt they are doing tremendous damage. Twelve million barrels of oil are used to make the plastic bags we use every year and by 2050 there will be more plastic by weight in the oceans than fish. We need to stop using plastic bags.”

When it comes to the use of plastic bags in this country and New York State, the numbers are mind-blowing.

Each year over 23 billion plastic bags — that’s 23 BILLION — are used in the Empire State alone. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, Americans used 100 billion plastic bags a year with the average American family using 1,500 bags. Yet only 1 percent of bags are recycled with the rest ending up in landfills or as trash.

That is why the ban, which will be inconvenient at the start, is so necessary. The ban will apply not only to grocery stores, but anywhere you go shopping, from Stewart’s Shops to Home Depot or the Gap. So you will either need to bring your own bag or counties and stores have the option of charging 5 cents for each paper bag used at checkout. On Friday, Feb. 28, after a lawsuit was filed, New York State announced it was delaying enforcement of the ban until April 1. The ban still becomes official on March 1, but retailers can stlll hand out plastic bags for the next month without being fined.

The money from the “bag tax” that counties levy will then be split, with local governments keeping 2 cents for each bag to be put toward a program to distribute reusable bags, while the remaining 3 cents goes to the state’s Environmental Protection Fund.

Currently seven counties in the state — Tompkins, Suffolk and the five that make up New York City — have chosen to levy the tax. In ­Albany County, the additional plastic bag fee is on hold for now, as the state Department of Taxation and Finance said officials found deficiencies in the way the Albany County Legislature drafted the law.?Also, stores are not required to carry paper bags and only may have reusable bags for sale.

While the bag waste reduction law prevents stores from providing customers with plastic bags, there are a host of exemptions and “loopholes” that have riled environmentalists, who say the ban doesn’t go far enough in completely removing plastics from the market. For example, according to the new law, there are 11 instances where it’s legal for a store to hand out an ‘exempt’ plastic bag, such as when a bag holds uncooked meat, fish or poultry, newspapers, prescription drugs or bulk items.?The ban also comes with exceptions. For example, in counties that decide to use the bag tax, those who receive SNAP or WIC benefits are exempt from paying the paper-bag fee since lawmakers were concerned the fee would unduly harm those with low income.

Environmentalists also have criticized the proposed bag tax fee, which allows consumers to still purchase paper bags.

“The state should have learned from other areas that also only banned plastic bags without a paper bag fee — they just don’t work,” the New York Public Interest Research Group wrote in a statement.

Rochester-based supermarket chain Wegman’s expressed similar concerns regarding the ban. In a statement, the supermarket chain said a state-wide plastic-bag ban would “likely lead to an increase in the use of paper bags, which is not what’s best for the environment. … Paper bags are heavier and take up more space; it takes seven tractor trailers to transport the same number of paper bags as plastic bags carried by one tractor trailer. It also takes about 90 percent more resources and energy to make and recycle paper compared to plastic.”

That is why locally, Price Chopper, Hannaford, Stewart’s Shops and many others have decided to charge their own 5 cent fee per bag as a way to dissuade people from using paper bags.

“If a deterrent isn’t placed on disposable paper bags, then they are likely to replace the disposable plastic ones, which defeats the sustainable intent of the law. Disposable bags are not the long-term solution,” said Mona Golub, vice president of Public Relations and Consumer Service for Price Chopper and Market32.

“Our aim is to discourage reliance on bags that become garbage after one or two uses and to encourage the reuse of heavy duty ones.“

The ban may not be perfect and there will likely be changes and additions, but the proposal certainly is in line with Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si: On Care for the Common Home.” In it, the pope addressed every person in the Catholic Church, explaining how our climate is in crisis, how the poor are often unfairly affected by the impact we have on our environment, and how it is our responsibility to make changes to aid in this crisis.?

The pope added that humans are to blame for this crisis, saying “humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it.”

And that is exactly what the ban is: a change in lifestyle. Churches in the Diocese of Albany have taken Pope Francis’ encyclical and assembled Care for Creation teams with initiatives designed to help the planet. For example, on Feb. 22-23, St. Mary’s Crescent Catholic Community in Waterford gave away free, reusable bags so parishioners could get the jump on the plastics ban.

The idea was spurred on by Father Joseph Cebula, pastor, with the goal to enable parishioners to do “one small thing for the environment” according to Stephanie Nolet, St. Mary’s pastoral associate for administration.?

“The whole idea is to enable parishioners to do one small thing for the environment,” Nolet said, “one small thing to help.”

Eliminating the use of plastic bags is “one small thing” that could turn into a one giant plus for the Earth.