photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A cart of groceries in plastic bags is pictured Thursday, June 30, 2022, at a Lawrence grocery store.

Story updated at 8:20 p.m. Thursday:

Calling it a major step toward reducing plastic waste, the City of Lawrence Sustainability Advisory Board has voted to recommend a ban on single-use plastic bags.

The board voted unanimously as part of a special meeting on Thursday to recommend an ordinance that would ban single-use plastic bags provided by grocery stores and other businesses. Thursday’s vote was the result of a discussion that goes back to 2018, and board members stressed the importance of taking a step in reducing plastic waste and educating the public about its harms.

The board discussed but ultimately decided against also banning produce bags, which members noted are used for health reasons to separate produce, meat and seafood from other products. Board member Steven Cramer said that while he personally preferred that paper bags be used since they biodegrade, he felt the thin, single-use plastic bags that the ordinance would ban represent an “extreme case” of litter, environmental damage and landfill waste. He said a ban on those bags, along with educational components included in the draft ordinance, would be a way to build momentum.

“It’s a step; it’s a major step,” Cramer said. “It removes a lot of bags from our personal lives and replaces them with the thought that I need to carry a reusable bag or at least use a paper bag.”

Since 2018, the board has discussed two approaches to a potential ordinance, initially discussing a ban on single-use plastic bags and more recently an ordinance that would instead require stores to charge their customers a 15-cent fee for each single-use plastic or paper bag. A board discussion earlier this month indicated mixed opinions among board members on charging a fee, and the topic was subsequently sent back to a subcommittee for further discussion.

Subcommittee chair Nancy Muma told her fellow board members Thursday that since then, a compromise was reached to propose a ban on only single-use plastic bags and include an educational component so the public is more aware of the harms of single-use plastics. She said the compromise also specified that the ordinance wouldn’t go into effect immediately after passage, which would provide more time to educate the public about plastic bags.

More specifically, the draft ordinance proposed by the subcommittee prohibits single-use disposable plastic bags, defined as any bag less than 4 mils thick — about the thickness of a piece of paper — provided to a consumer by an establishment for the purpose of transporting food, beverages, goods or other merchandise. The ordinance would cover grocery stores, restaurants and other businesses that provide single-use bags at checkout. It would not include single-use plastic bags used for produce or reusable bags — bags of various materials, including plastic, that are designed for repeated use.

The proposed ordinance calls for the ban to begin nine months after the ordinance is passed, and it would require businesses that provide single-use plastic bags to put up signs making their customers aware of the upcoming change that also include some information about the impact of plastic bags. That information is as follows, and businesses would have to pick two of the five points to include on signage.

• “City of Lawrence residents use 29.7 – 35.4 million plastic shopping bags annually.”

• “Single-use plastic bags increase operational costs for the City of Lawrence (clog sewer, drainage ditches, recycling machinery).”

• “You are encouraged to gradually find alternatives to single-use plastic bags.”

• “Single-use disposable plastic bags are frequently ingested by animals, which contributes significantly to animal morbidity and mortality.”

• “Discarded single-use disposable plastic bags degrade into microplastics that subsequently contaminate our food and water supplies and pose significant and distinct human health risks.”

The Lawrence City Commission asked the board last month to restart the discussion on disposable plastic bags. The city previously discussed banning or charging a fee for plastic bags, and a draft ordinance was even discussed at the commission level in 2019, but the process was delayed amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential for state legislation prohibiting such bans.

Earlier this year, Kansas legislators passed a bill to prevent cities and counties from banning, limiting or even taxing plastic bags, straws and food containers, as The Associated Press reported. Business owners argued that complying with a patchwork of local rules would increase their costs, while environmentalists stressed the worldwide issue of plastic trash and the ability for cities and counties to set their own policies. On April 12, Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who said she was an advocate for local control, vetoed the bill.

Board Chair Kira McPherson said she saw another attempt at the state level to preempt cities from banning plastic bags as inevitable. Because of that, she said she thought the educational and outreach component of the ordinance was the crux of the effort.

“So, the education seems like it’s an afterthought, but it needs to be the main movement-building,” McPherson said. “Planting a seed, so that people are talking about this with good and adequate information, once that inevitable pushback happens.”

The board also discussed a proposal regarding how a ban would be enforced. The board’s subcommittee proposed a process where individuals could report an establishment that was not complying with the ordinance and the city would send a warning followed by fines of increasing cost. The board decided that how the ordinance should be enforced should be an issue considered by city management, and ultimately decided not to forward a specific recommendation regarding enforcement or penalties. The ordinance now only calls for compliance to be monitored by the city and for fines to be issued to establishments that don’t comply.

The board’s recommendation will go to the City Commission for ultimate consideration.