New bag law a headache for stores

Businesses work to conform to provisions

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Retailers in Seaford and Wantagh are struggling to come to grips with a new measure that takes effect on Sunday, banning single-use bags like those found at grocery checkout counters. And while some merchants say they are prepared for the changeover, others are confused about what is permitted, and even about the reason for the ban.

“The government didn’t do a very good job of educating us about what we have to do,” said Christine D’Angelo, co-owner of D’Angelo Sporting Goods in Wantagh, nine days before the ban was slated to begin. “They haven’t given us any guidelines. It’s just up to us to figure it out.”

D’Angelo pointed out a stack of bags that were heavier duty than the so-called T-shirt bags given away at supermarkets. “Can I use these?” she asked.

Whatever the answer turned out to be, D’Angelo said, the law would probably have little impact on her business. The store specializes in competition darts and baseball memorabilia, and since dartboards are both heavy and prepackaged, few customers ask for bags. And the store already has enough paper bags to accommodate customers buying smaller items, like darts or storage folders for baseball cards.

The ban includes a provision allowing counties to opt in to a 5-cent-per-bag charge for paper bags. But unlike Suffolk County, Nassau County has chosen not to make the charge mandatory. Retailers may charge for the bags, but the revenue will count as taxable income for the store.

Most large chain grocers have policies in place. King Kullen, which was purchased by Stop & Shop early last year, will charge for the paper bags, as will Shop Rite. Trader Joe’s and Dollar Tree will not.

Smaller retailers are left to make their own decisions. D’Angelo indicated she would most likely give the bags away. “Customers have already come in and bought from us,” she said. “I can’t see charging them another 5 cents for a bag.”

For larger retailers, however, the difference in cost is not insignificant. “We use about 80 cases of bags a week,” said Everton Howell, a manager of the King Kullen franchise in Levittown. Each case contains 1,000 bags, and each bag costs about a penny.

Paper bags cost an average of 10 to 15 cents each, according to Ken Trottere, vice president of marketing and sales at Poly Pak in Melville, a national distributor of plastic bags. Assuming the same rate of consumption, paper bags would cost a store like Howell’s $500,000 per year more than plastic.

Howell said his store wasn’t quite ready for the changeover, but would be by the time the ban takes effect.

Other merchants, like Salpino, an upscale Italian grocer with locations in Wantagh and North Bellmore, have had difficulty fulfilling their orders for paper due to the upsurge in demand from retailers across the state. But Brands, which sells bicycles and bike equipment, apparel and accessories, was already stocked with paper and ready for the switch.

What remained unclear to many, including D’Angelo, was exactly how eliminating single-use plastic bags would benefit the environment, if they were replaced by heavier-gauge paper. Bag manufacturers have been asking the same question.

The Plastic Bag Waste Reduction Act signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo last April was meant to reduce the number of bags that find their way into parks and waterways and along city streets. The state Department of Environmental Conservation estimates that New Yorkers use 23 billion of the bags annually, that each bag is used for an average of 12 minutes, and that more than 80 percent of them end up as trash.

The most common objection to the bags is that they are unsightly. “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,” Cuomo said at the bill signing. “Twelve million barrels of oil are used to make the plastic bags we use [in the U.S.] every year … We need to stop using plastic bags, and today we’re putting an end to this blight on our environment.”

The U.S. consumes about 7.3 trillion barrels of oil per year, according to the International Energy Agency. Twelve million barrels is slightly more than half of a single day’s consumption.

In Albany, lawmakers’ main hope is that the new measure will encourage customers to bring their own reusable, machine-washable bags — a reasonable hope, if the experience of other countries is any indication. For decades, shoppers in the European Union have routinely bought, saved and reused their bags.

Though they are reusable, however, the cloth-like bags sold at most local grocers are not recyclable, according to Trottere. And as manufactured products — the bags are sewn — producing them domestically would be prohibitively expensive. Two bags bought last Saturday were made in China and Vietnam.

Customers are not allowed to reuse their old single-use bags. Retailers are required to confiscate them and ensure that they are recycled.

The irony is that those bags are almost 100 percent recyclable, according to Trottere. And the regrind — the product of the recycling process — can now be turned into new single-use bags. Except for energy costs, the process is essentially a closed loop.

Plastics manufacturers, who were not listed as among the experts consulted by the DEC in formulating the regulations, have long emphasized that the best way to help the environment is to reduce the amount of material consumed at the front end of the process, rather than cleaning up the excess at the back end.

Trottere said the ban would affect his business, but “we sell all over the Northeast. It’ll hurt us, but we won’t really be in trouble unless some of the neighboring states, like Massachusetts or Pennsylvania, go along.”

One of the new law’s curious exemptions is for bags that are 10 mils or thicker. A mil is a thousandth of an inch, and the average shopping bag that that will be banned is about 0.8 mils thick. “We don’t make bags that heavy — not many people do,” Trottere said of the 10-mil bags, marveling at the irony of a law that permits bags that are many times thicker than those being banned. “But we’re going to learn how, since the law allows them.”