Honolulu City Council Chair Ernie Martin says he will move to have the city join Kaua‘i and two other Hawaiian counties in banning or regulating plastic checkout bags. “I’m probably going to push a bill for discussion matters if not
Honolulu City Council Chair Ernie Martin says he will move to have the city join Kaua‘i and two other Hawaiian counties in banning or regulating plastic checkout bags.
“I’m probably going to push a bill for discussion matters if not in the February full Council meeting, then at least in March, no later than March,” he told Civil Beat Thursday.
The Big Island passed its ordinance Wednesday, following on the heels of Kaua‘i and Maui. That leaves Honolulu as the holdout.
“I would say it’s probably going to be more challenging because we’re a bigger county with significantly more business interests,” Martin said in a telephone interview. “There will be a significant amount of testimony coming from the grocery industry and the retail industry in general. I’m sure there will be some intensive lobbying from that side.”
After the Hawai‘i County vote Wednesday, Civil Beat asked Martin in an email if there’s been any new push to consider a ban on Oahu. It’s been tried before, most recently in 2010. But the idea was deferred indefinitely after the administration raised concerns about enforcement and business interests complained about the cost.
In his email response, Martin said he hopes to “initiate a thorough review of issues and concerns that were previously put forth against such a ban as we hope that we will be able to craft a bill that has a reasonable chance of being adopted.”
So what would such a bill look like? The Council has a few decisions to make both before a bill is introduced and then during deliberations, should it move forward. There are three main questions, and we’ll take them one at a time.
Ban or fee?
In his email to Civil Beat, Martin said the proposal “would effectuate a ban.” In the follow-up interview Thursday, Martin said he’s keen on “a total ban at this juncture.”
That’s in line with county-wide bans passed by Maui, Kaua‘i and now Hawai‘i and distinct from a bill introduced last year at the Hawaii Legislature that would have created the nation’s first statewide fee on single-use checkout bags.
In the final days of the 2011 legislative session, lawmakers agreed the fee should be 10 cents per bag, but the final version never got a vote. It could be revived next month when the 2012 legislative session begins.
But the word “ban” can be squishier than you’d think.
The last time the Honolulu City Council took a whack at this issue, in 2010, Bill 43 was described by KITV as a “ban” with the caveat that stores could give customers plastic bags after charging 5 cents apiece.
The law also would have only applied to stores with more than $1 million in annual gross sales.
Environmental Services Director Tim Steinberger criticized the proposal because it would be difficult to enforce and would let small stores off the hook, according to KITV.
“I would say, if we are going to ban plastic bags, just ban the bags instead of trying to do a partial ban on them,” Steinberger said in November 2010, the station reported.
That meeting was days after the 2010 election, and the new Council made no efforts to move the measure forward once members took office. Stanley Chang has held no more hearings on Bill 43 since he joined the Council and took over the Public Works and Sustainability Committee that replaced the Public Infrastructure Committee that had deferred the proposal. But the bag-versus-fee debate wasn’t the only issue that sidetracked the proposal.
What would the ban cover?
When the bill was deferred, Public Infrastructure Committee Chair Ann Kobayashi said she wanted to look at the whole issue relating to plastics, including plastic foam, beverage cups and plastic bag recycling, according to meeting minutes and the KITV report.
Kobayashi’s point: There are larger environmental issues at play, and there are different ways to address them other than a blanket ban on nonbiodegradable plastic bags.
The state fee proposal, for example, would have covered all single-use bags, including both paper and plastic. The Kaua‘i ordinance, by contrast, specified that the ban there would cover only bags containing “polymers derived from fossil fuels” and those that decompose slower than paper, leaves and food.
In his email to Civil Beat, Martin said the ban would apply to “non-biodegradable plastic bags.”
How will it be enforced?
A ban without teeth is no ban at all.
How will Honolulu ensure that any law it does pass will be enforced? Options include relying on voluntary compliance and complaints or inspections. One critic of the Maui ban had this to say in a 2010 Maui News article: “Who’s going to enforce it? The plastic bag police?”
Kaua‘i’s fines are $250 per day for the first notice of violation, $500 per day for the second notice within 365 days of the first, and $1,000 per day for any subsequent notices in that same time frame. Maui’s ordinance has a $500 fine for each day a store is out of compliance.
Martin said his bill will likely include “some type of penalty to encourage compliance with the ordinance.”
The just-passed Big Island ban removed fines from an earlier incarnation of the bill.The stalled Honolulu fee bill would have fined violators between $100 and $1,000 per day.
• Honolulu Civil Beat is an online news source serving Hawai‘i. Read more at www.civilbeat.com.
