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The battle over plastic bags in Michigan is about more than just plastic bags. It’s about keeping progressive municipalities from exploring solutions to the problems that we’re facing. It’s about squashing both innovation and local democratic rule.

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A few days ago, Michigan Republicans made national headlines for passing a ban on the banning of plastic bags… And, yes, you read that right. They didn’t pass a law banning plastic bags, but they passed a law making it illegal for local jurisdictions to ban the use of such bags, which are increasingly clogging our drains, killing our wildlife and filling our oceans. How’s that for priorities? Instead of passing new lead standards in the wake of the Flint Water crisis, voting on a tax credit for educators who spend their own money in their classrooms, considering any of the criminal justice reforms that have been proposed, or any number of other things that actually matter to Michigan citizens, our Republican representatives in Lansing pushed through legislation (Senate Bill 853) that would make it illegal for individual municipalities within the state to protect the environment by passing laws intended to cut down on the rampant proliferation of plastic bags. [To give you a sense of scale, according to a 2015 study, the eight million tons of plastic dumped into our oceans each year translates to roughly five grocery bags per every foot of coastline around the globe.]

This recent ban on bans, for those who aren’t aware of the history, was pursued in order to kill a June 1, 2016 decision by the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners to pass Michigan’s first Carryout Bag Ordinance, which would have required, starting on Earth Day 2017, that a 10-cent “eco-fee” be charged for each disposable bag distributed within the boundaries of the county. The decision, at the time, was commended by the Ecology Center, the Michigan Environmental Council, and the Sierra Club, among others, all of whom acknowledged the growing local problem. Apparently, though, business interests interceded with our Republican legislators in Lansing… The following comes by way of the Washington Post.

..The new public act prohibits local ordinances from “regulating the use, disposition, or sale of, prohibiting or restricting, or imposing any fee, charge, or tax on certain containers,” including plastic bags, as well as cups, bottles and other forms of packaging. This means individual cities and municipalities are not allowed to ban plastic bags or charge customers a fee for using them.

Bans and restrictions on the use of plastic bags are widespread in other parts of the country and around the world. The rationale is simple: Plastic bags are infamous non-biodegradable sources of pollution — although they will eventually break down into tiny pieces, scientists believe this process can take hundreds of years, or even up to a millennium, in landfills.

Many scientists are growing particularly concerned about plastic pollution in the oceans. Research suggests that 5 million to 12 million metric tons of plastic may have been dumped into the ocean in 2010 alone. There, the waste is frequently eaten by seabirds and other marine animals — or it breaks down into tiny pieces known as microplastics, which scientists believe can be harmful or even toxic to sea creatures who ingest it.

Bangladesh was the first country in the world to ban certain types of thin plastic bags in 2002, after they were found to have choked the nation’s drainage systems during a series of devastating floods. China instituted a similar ban in 2008, and also prohibits businesses from giving out thicker plastic bags to customers for free. Other nations, including South Africa and Italy, have also enacted similar restrictions.

San Francisco became the first U.S. municipality to institute a plastic bag ban. And in 2014, California became the first state. Many other municipalities around the country have bans or fees in place, including Austin, Seattle and Chicago, which will be repealing its citywide ban in favor of a 7-cent tax next month.

On the other hand, Michigan is not the only state to have implemented a ban on bans. Idaho, Arizona and Missouri all have enacted similar laws. In these cases, proponents of the laws have defended them as a way of protecting businesses from having to comply with additional regulations.

The new Michigan law was met with praise from the Michigan Restaurant Association for this reason.

“With many of our members owning and operating locations across the state, preventing a patchwork approach of additional regulations is imperative to avoid added complexities as it related to day-to-day business operations,” said Robert O’Meara, the association’s vice president of government affairs, in a statement…

Coincidentally, when I heard the news that Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley had signed this “ban on bans” into law on behalf of the vacationing Rick Snyder, I just happened to be in Hawaii, a state which outlawed plastic bags at the grocery checkout in 2015. While I wouldn’t say that I spent a great deal of time researching the effects of the plastic ban on businesses in Hawaii, as I was busy with wedding related festivities, I didn’t really notice any huge issues. People, as far as I could tell, were still going to stores, and still buying stuff. And, somehow, they were able to transport their purchases with them without plastic bags. I suppose that, elsewhere in Hawaii, people could have been falling down left and right, unable to manage getting their toilet paper and eggs to their cars without plastic bags, like those horribly inept people in the infomercials that just can’t seem to crack eggs without a special egg-cracking tool, but I didn’t see any sign of it. Everyone I saw either brought their own bags with them, or used paper bags, like the one at the top of the page, which I got from the grocery store near where we were staying. [My brother-in-law, by the way, is now officially off-the-market. So, if your plan was to join my family through marriage, you’re going to have to find another way.]

For what it’s worth, I’ve read the critiques of plastic bag bans, and I know that it’s a complicated issue. I know, for instance, that paper bags aren’t a perfect solution, as, among other things, their manufacture also contributes toward global climate change. With that said, though, I can understand why states, countries and municipalities are looking for ways to nudge people away from plastics, which are now clogging our oceans. And this is especially true for places like Hawaii, which are seeing the devastating effects firsthand. [According to the Sea Turtle Conservancy, “Over 100 million marine animals are killed each year due to plastic debris in the ocean.” Furthermore, I’ve seen it noted in multiple places that “85 percent of all sea turtles will be injured or killed by plastics in their lifetimes,” although I can’t seem to find credible research at the moment to substantiate that.]

As it’s not a debate that I follow closely, I can’t say whether or not, when everything is factored in, that a plastic bag ban would have been good for Washtenaw County. What I do know, however, is that it shouldn’t be the state’s call. As former Grad Rapids Mayor George Heartwell recently pointed out, “in Washtenaw County alone, 25 percent of costs for equipment repairs at recycling facilities are from damage caused by plastic bags jamming equipment,” and our local officials should be able to respond accordingly, finding and implementing solutions that work in our community. And the state shouldn’t tie our hands. And, for what it’s worth, I also know that the current system, in which the average American takes home approximately 1,500 plastic shopping bags a year, each of which is only kept only about 12 minutes, just isn’t sustainable. And, with this in mind, I think our leaders in Lansing should be helping to facilitate the local exploration of alternatives, not standing in the way of progress and innovation. [What about a state incentive to reward the municipality that comes up with the best solution to reduce plastic bag use, rather than a blanket ban?] The bottom line is that we need to start talking about these issues like adults, and not just pretending that they don’t exist. That, in large part, is why our young people are leaving Michigan, and we cannot allow it to continue. The very future of our state depends on it.

Lastly, I’d just like to point out that this is yet one more instance of Michigan Republicans, who so often talk about the importance of protecting local rule, drawing the line when it comes to issues that they (and their wealthy, corporate donors) don’t agree with. I know this hypocrisy doesn’t appear to bother Republican voters, but it irks me no end to see how easily these leaders of ours, after talking about the importance of local rule, then use their considerable power to strike down local ordinances having to do with things like civil rights, living wages and plastic bags. But, as the New York Times pointed out in 2015, it’s not peculiar to Michigan.

…So-called pre-emption laws, passed in states across the country, have barred cities from regulating landlords, building municipal broadband systems and raising the minimum wage. In the last two years, eight Republican-dominated states, most recently Alabama and Oklahoma, have prevented cities from enacting paid sick leave for workers, and a new law in Arkansas forbids municipalities to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination. Already this year, bills introduced in six more states, including Michigan, Missouri and South Carolina, seek to do the same. At least five states have pre-empted local regulation of e-cigarettes. And in New Mexico, the restaurant industry supports a modest increase to the minimum wage only if the state stops cities from mandating higher minimums.

Often these efforts are driven by industry, which finds it easier to wield influence in 50 capitols than in thousands of city halls, said Mark Pertschuk, the director of Grassroots Change, which opposes the pre-emption of public health measures.

The strategy was pioneered by tobacco companies 30 years ago to override local smoking bans. It was perfected by the National Rifle Association, which has succeeded in preventing local gun regulations in almost every state.

More recently, the restaurant industry is leading the fight to block municipalities from increasing the minimum wage or enacting paid sick leave ordinances in more than a dozen states, including Florida, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

“Businesses are operating in an already challenging regulatory environment,” said Scott DeFife, the head of government affairs for the National Restaurant Association. “The state legislature is the best place to determine wage and hour law. This is not the kind of policy that should be determined jurisdiction by jurisdiction.”

This year, a combination of big money in state politics and a large number of first-time state legislators presents an opportunity for industries interested in getting favorable laws on the books, Mr. Pertschuk said. Increasingly, he said, disparate industries are banding together to back the same laws, through either the business-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, or shared lobbyists. “There is going to be a feeding frenzy all year long in the state legislatures,” he said…

Like it or not, that’s the world we live in. Even when we try to do the right things in our little progressive enclaves, they find a way to stop us. If we pass a law protecting LGBT rights, they kill it. If we talk about implementing a local living wage ordinance, they stop it. If we say that we’d like to explore ways to slow the sale of assault weapons, they make sure it can’t happen. And all while telling us that they truly value local rule. This, my friends, is what we’re fighting against… national lobbying interests paying our representatives in Lansing to keep us from exploring solutions to the problems that we’re facing. It’s anti-democratic in the extreme, and it needs to be stopped.


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