St. Louis Park backs away from plastic bag ban

Earlier this year, St. Louis Park took aim at being the first city in Minnesota to ban plastic bags.

Now city leaders are backing away from that goal — it would be more symbolic than substantive, they say — but moving ahead on a companion proposal requiring all takeout food packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable.

A public hearing on the proposal is set for next week.

"We've tabled the bag thing altogether," said Jake Spano, a City Council member who will be sworn in as mayor next month. "If we're really serious about making a difference in our waste stream, [bags are] such a tiny portion of it."

A handful of major U.S. cities have banned plastic bags in recent years, but the trend may be slowing.

Chicago passed a bag ban that took effect in August, but the ordinance provided a wide range of exceptions. Earlier this year, Dallas repealed a five-cent fee on plastic bags and rejected an attempt to ban them entirely.

Arizona passed a state law this year prohibiting any local bans, taxes or fees on plastic bags, while Californians will vote next year on a statewide bag ban that's vigorously opposed by business groups.

Plastic bags make up only about half of 1 percent of St. Louis Park's waste stream, city officials said. Meanwhile, materials that could be recycled or composted, such as packaging, account for more than half the city's solid waste.

Minneapolis banned several types of polystyrene and plastic food containers earlier this year, and the city is also considering a plastic bag ban.

St. Louis Park's proposed "zero waste packaging" ordinance would not specifically ban foam cups, plates and clamshell containers. But in practice, "it's likely that most foam containers would not be eligible" anyway, said Kala Fisher, the city's solid waste coordinator.

That's because metro-area recycling facilities don't want to process polystyrene foam containers and don't have a market for them, Fisher said, even though it's possible to recycle those materials and more than 100 cities nationwide do it.

The takeout container proposal is opposed by a roster of heavy-hitting business groups, including the Minnesota Retailers Association, the Minnesota Restaurant Association and the Minnesota Grocers Association. But Spano said businesses should look at the proposal as a potential marketing tool.

"There are people who have made this a part of their brand and a part of their message," Spano said. "They market themselves based on their environmental practices."

The plastics industry supports increased recycling, which is why foam takeout containers should be allowed, an industry spokesman said.

"We do support the concept of the ordinance," said Mike Levy, director of the Plastics Foodservice Packaging Group of the American Chemistry Council. "We feel that St. Louis Park, in moving toward more recycling, should include all materials."

For example, Los Angeles allows all plastic — including foam — in its single-stream curbside recycling program, Levy said. The best way to encourage recycling facilities to take foam products is to start providing them with a supply, he said.

The public hearing on the St. Louis Park proposal will begin at 7:30 p.m. Monday at City Hall, 5005 Minnetonka Blvd. The ordinance could pass as soon as Dec. 21, but wouldn't take effect until Jan. 1, 2017. That would give businesses a year to adjust, and the city time enough to make decisions on exactly how the program would take shape, Fisher said.

John Reinan • 612-673-7402