The Tenino City Council on Tuesday tabled indefinitely a county-recommended measure to ban plastic bags — an action which effectively rejects the ban for the foreseeable future.
Already adopted by Thurston County and the cities of Olympia and Tumwater, the suggested measure bans single-use plastic bags and adds a five-cent fee to all paper bags. Over the last several months, these jurisdictions have enjoined Tenino to follow suit.
Before making a motion to table the agenda item, Councilor Frank Anderson expressed his frustration with the issue which, he said, has wasted too much of the council’s time.
“I’m getting tired of seeing this on here (the agenda). I’m getting tired of the cities to the north trying to almost dictate their will upon the rest of the community,” Anderson said. “We’ve heard numerous citizens express their dissatisfaction. For us to take more time with it would be a slap in the face of our citizens. We can make better use of our time.”
The motion was seconded by Councilor Robert Scribner and was passed unanimously.
In a letter to Mayor Bret Brodersen, Olympia Mayor Stephen Buxbaum earlier this week urged the council to accept the regional measure which would “eliminate the estimated 90 million plastic shopping bags from the waste stream each year.”
Allowing free use of plastic bags, he said, “consumes precious natural resources, often litters the landscape and has been shown to cause harm to marine animal life.”
According to Olympia, only about 5 to 8 percent of plastic bags are recycled each year.
The ordinance adopted by Olympia, Tumwater and Thurston County goes into effect July 1 of next year. It eliminates thin-film plastic carryout bags. The ban does not include plastic bags for prepared take-out food, dry cleaning, newspapers or garbage bags sold in packages.
According to Thurston County, the new ordinance places a fee on paper bags to help stores offset the higher costs of providing paper bags.
Residents using food assistance programs do not pay for paper bags.
Tenino has debated the measure’s pros and cons over the last several months.
Councilor Dave Watterson at the council’s Sept. 24 meeting said he was in favor of a plastic bag ban — until he started to delve into the issue.
“I’m probably one of the greener people in here. I try to do environmentally friendly things,” Watterson said. “But when you start doing some research — and I tried to look at a lot of sources, from tree-huggers to the plastic bag industry — from what I’m reading, paper bags are as bad or worse than plastic bags.”
“I’ve completely changed my mind on the whole plastic bag thing,” he said. “It sounds like a great thing, but the answer isn’t going to paper. People aren’t getting the whole story on what’s going on here.”
Reusable bags aren’t a great option either, he said. To see any environmental benefit, Watterson said, a reusable bag must be used more than 180 times.
“It’s not as simple as what they show,” he said. “The alternatives are worse.”
Should it reconsider its decision, the city council can vote to remove the ban from the table and add it back to a meeting agenda.
