SOURCE:
https://www.newsday.com/opinion/newsday-opinion-the-point-newsletter-1.41281884
By Michael Dobie - January 31, 2020
Tensions between the business and environmental communities are commonplace, and a big one is playing out in Albany with the approach of the March 1 date when a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags goes into effect.
Retailers and manufacturers have lobbied heavily for loopholes in the regulations that will implement the law. And they may be having some success. The state Department of Environmental Conservation, which writes the regs, is proposing to allow thicker plastic bags of 10 mils or more. One mil is equal to 0.001 inches.
Allowable bag thickness is one of three areas of the law that need clarification, environmentalists say. An exemption for restaurants needs to include a definition of a restaurant, and exemptions for kinds of stores not spelled out in exact language must be specified — for example, pet stores that put goldfish in plastic bags.
But the thickness issue is the attention-grabber, judging from a public hearing in the state capitol earlier this week. Most supermarket plastic bags are 0.5 mil. Municipalities that have defined reusable plastic bags set limits in the range of 2.25 mils (California) to 4 mils (Connecticut).
Some environmentalists in New York, including a group representing more than 60 organizations that rallied in Albany on Friday, argue against the 10-mil carveout. To them, plastic is plastic is bad. Others say a 10-mil bag is really a reusable bag. Then the question is whether the consumer looks at the thicker bag as being reusable or tosses it out after one use out of habit.
So how will it all play out?
“It’s difficult and expensive for stores to give out bags thicker than 10 mils. We believe stores will not be willing to incur that expense, and therefore switch to selling reusables,” Citizens Campaign for the Environment executive director Adrienne Esposito told The Point. “It’s not the ideal proposal but it’s not awful.”