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  Californians for Extended Producer Responsibility

    The Carryout Bag EPR Program

Waste reduction

Grocery stores give customers far too many carryout bags at the checkout. There seems to be no self-restraint whatsoever by the stores. There is no excuse for double bagging. There is no excuse for giving a bag for a single item which can be carried by hand. There is much more that be done to reduce the number of plastic and paper bags given to consumers. Stores need to take responsibility for their bagging practices and stop the proliferation. They also need to do much more to promote recycling.

Mandatory waste reduction

As part of the program:

• Double bagging of plastic and paper carryout bags would be prohibited.
  

• Store cashiers or baggers would be required to ask customers purchasing a single item whether they need a carryout bag.
  

• Store cashiers or baggers would be required to ask all customers to return plastic carryout bags to the store for recycling and point out the location of plastic bag recycling bins. We believe that this would result in a huge increase in the number of bags deposited in bins by consumers.
  

• Uniform signage and a logo would be required for all plastic bag recycling bins.
  

There is existing legislation requiring stores to make reusable bags available to customers.

Voluntary waste reduction

The program would require the Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery (DRR) (the successor to the California Integrated Waste Management Board) to develop a program to do the following:

• Encourage stores to fill the maximum item count or weight per plastic or paper carryout bag.
  

• Encourage stores not to give plastic or paper carryout bags to customers to hold a single item, subject to appropriate exceptions.
  

• Encourage stores to ensure that plastic bag recycling bins are placed in highly visible locations and clearly marked with a statewide uniform logo to be approved by the DRR.
  

• Encourage stores to print their logo and commercial messages on only one side of plastic carryout bags and use the opposite side only for prominent messages to request and encourage customers to use plastic bag recycling bins.
  

• Encourage stores to ask customers to bring clean plastic and paper carryout bags back to the store for future shopping rather than asking for new bags. 
  

Reporting and metrics

Stores are already required to provide plastic bag usage and recycling data to the state. This would be expanded to include paper bags.

Store operators would be required to report to the DRR (i) their compliance with the mandatory waste reduction provisions and (ii) their policies and procedures regarding the voluntary waste reduction provisions.

The major British stores achieved a 48% reduction in three years. (There is some disagreement about how the calculation of the percentage but the raw numbers speak for themselves: 870 million plastic bags in May 2006; 418 million plastic bags in May 2009.) American stores need to achieve similar results.

Copyright 2009 Californians for Extended Producer Responsibility

This recycling bin is located at the exit of a Tesco store in Britain. Many customers in Britain bring their "single-use" plastic bags back to the store to use again. There is a lot more that American stores can do.