Panel scraps bid to ban plastic shopping bags

A lobbyist said retailers are already struggling with a poor economy and that plastic bags are much cheaper.

By: Olympia Meola | Richmond Times Dispatch
Published: February 04, 2010

An effort to ban plastic shopping bags was sacked in a dinner time subcommittee meeting yesterday.

The measure, introduced by Del. Joseph D. Morrissey, D-Henrico, would have blocked stores from giving out plastic bags unless they are durable plastic bags with handles or specifically made for reuse.

He argued that the bags harm the environment, aren't catching on for large scale recycling and can take at least a quarter century to degrade. But lawmakers took an unrecorded vote to table the bill after listening to a string of lobbyists from the retail and chemical manufacturing industries oppose the measure.

Del. M. Kirkland Cox, R-Colonial Heights, and Del. R. Lee Ware Jr., R-Powhatan, were among the lawmakers who voted against the measure. Morrissey is holding a news conference this afternoon to talk about his bill and a measure introduced by Del. Adam P. Ebbin, D-Alexandria, which would assess a 5-cent disposable bag fee on paper and plastic bags.

Retail groups argued in yesterday evening's subcommittee meeting that model programs under way in the state encourage plastic bag recycling and they would like to continue those efforts before an outright ban.

"We know it's a problem," said Margaret Ballard, with the Virginia Retail Federation.

She added that retailers are already struggling with a poor economy and that plastic bags are much cheaper. Paper bags, she estimated, can cost four times as much as plastic bags. Reusable canvas bags are "very expensive."

But a vote for business was a vote against farmers, Morrissey said. Henrico County farmer Wilmer Stoneman, associate director of government relations for the Virginia Farm Bureau, supported the bill, telling lawmakers that the bags tangle farm equipment, threaten crop quality and endanger livestock.

Cotton farmers have trouble with plastic bags covering the fields and mixing into the cotton bales. He said the problem extends to the loom, because if a cotton T-shirt resists dye because there is plastic in the cotton, it can be traced all the way back to the farmer.

"So it's an economic issue," he said.

Stoneman farms about 100 acres under the I-295 bridge in Henrico County and said he sees firsthand the number of bags that scatter the fields.