City still hashing out 'bag ban' law

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Wednesday night at the Environmental Board meeting, staff with the City of Austin presented a revised draft of the single-use bag ordinance that's currently being considered.

The new draft, titled draft 2.5, suggests starting the educational prep time of the program March of this year, the fee period starting March 2013, and the actual ban kicking in March 2014.

Under the latest proposal, retailers would charge customers 10-cents for each plastic or paper bag they use during the fee period, which would end March 2014, when the ban would take effect. At that time, customers would only be allowed to use reusable bags.

Those stores that apply for a hardship variance could be exempt from the process.

The original draft, released in December, suggested that surcharge be at 25 cents. The original draft also suggested the phase-in process start Jan. 1, 2013 and end just before Jan. 1, 2016 -- which at that point, there would be a full ban of the single-use bags altogether.

The second draft, released last week, suggested the fee period kick in June of this year, with an overall ban taking affect next January.

Opponents of the process said the accelerated timeline doesn't give retailers enough chance to train their staff or reprogram their registers.

"It does accelerate the implementation phase, which presents some logistical issues for retailers in that it takes time to train staff, takes time to reprogram cash registers to be collecting a bag tax," said Ronnie Volkening, with the Texas Retailers Association. "And then it's only going to be in place seven months and you have to undo that bag tax again."

Retail stores like HEB are concerned with the prospect of having to train 10,000 of their staff members, in the 26 stores throughout Austin, in such a short amount of time.

Instead of a ban, big retail stores like HEB are pushing the City of Austin to consider a stricter recycling program instead.

"A lot of consumers are very attached to have some sort of bags to take their products home in. And they may very well decide to drive across city lines to the store next door," Volkening said.

In the more recent draft, the single-use bag ban would not apply to:

1) Laundry dry cleaning bags, door-hangar bags, newspaper bags, or packages of multiple bags intended for use as garbage, pet waste, or yard waste; and
2) Bags used by a consumer inside a business establishment to:
a) Contain bulk items, such as produce, nuts, grains, candy or small hardware items;
b) Contain or wrap frozen foods, meats, or fish, whether or not prepackaged;
c) Contain or wrap flowers, potted plants or other items to prevent moisture damage to other purchases; or
d) Contain unwrapped prepared foods or bakery good.

City staff are also working to exempt prescription bags from the ban because of privacy reasons; and also fast food and restaurant take-out bags, because of health concerns.

A third draft -- expected to be a more compromising approach -- is expected to be released to City Council members the end of January.

More public meetings are also scheduled before City Council members possibly take a vote on the ban some time in March.