SOURCE:
https://www.newsday.com/business/coronavirus/bag-ban-coronavirus-paper-reusable-1.43737794
By The Associated Press - April 10, 2020
Just weeks ago, cities, counties and states across the country were busy banning straws, limiting takeout containers and mandating that shoppers bring reusable bags or pay a fee as the movement to eliminate single-use plastics took hold in mainstream America.
What a difference a pandemic makes.
In a matter of days, hard-won bans to reduce the use of plastics — and particularly plastic shopping sacks — have come under fire amid worries about the virus clinging to reusable bags, cups and straws.
“The concerns are about any type of reusable product coming into a store or restaurant right now. You just don’t know if it is contaminated,” said Matt Seaholm, executive director of the American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance. “Expecting a worker to handle that item or it being put into the bagging area just seems to be an unnecessary risk to take right now.”
A study by the U.S. National Institutes of Health found the novel coronavirus can remain on plastics and stainless steel for up to three days, and on cardboard for up to one day. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it appears possible for a person to get COVID-19 by touching a surface that has the virus on it and then touching their mouth, nose or eyes — but it's not thought that's the main way the virus spreads.
Stop & Shop and Stew Leonard’s said they have not banned reusable bags from their Long Island stores but are requesting that customers who use them bag their own groceries. Both stores say their stores are still offering single-use plastic bags.
“At our stores in East Meadow and in Farmingdale, customers are still welcome to bring reusable bags,” said Meghan Bell, director of public relations for Stew Leonard’s. “However, we encourage the customers to bag their own groceries if they are using reusable bags. Our cashiers are wearing gloves and are also behind Plexiglas barriers.”
In New York, a ban on plastic bags was to have gone into effect on March 1, but enforcement was pushed from April to May, held up in part by a lawsuit against the Department of Environmental Conservation filed by Poly-Pak Industries, a Melville-based manufacturer of plastic bags, and an association of bodega store owners in New York City.
The plastics industry is lobbying to overturn bans on single-use plastics by arguing disposable plastics are the safest option amid the crisis. In addition to New York, bans are in the books in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and Vermont. Oregon and California also have laws limiting the use of plastic straws.
Some environmentalists say the plastic industry is using the pandemic to gin up unnecessary concern over reusable bags.
“The plastics industry has been in public relations overdrive mode since the coronavirus appeared in China, not just in the U.S,” said Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator who now teaches about plastic pollution at Bennington College in Vermont. “There’s no evidence that reusable bags are source of the coronavirus.”
Other environmentalists see the concerns as temporary.
“When coronavirus subsides, we’re going to still need to have clean water and a clean environment,” said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment in Farmingdale and supporter of the ban. “The driving need to reduce plastics is still real. We’re confident the state policies on environmental protection will be just as strong.”
The Plastics Industry Association recently sent a letter to Alex Azar, head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and asked him to speak out against plastic bag bans because they put consumers and workers at risk. And the American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance is doubling down on its opposition to plastic bag bans under a preexisting campaign titled Bag the Ban.
“They are not very sanitary,” said Ken Trottere, vice president of Poly-Pak Industries, Inc.