Baltimore City will not become the second city in the nation to ban plastic grocery bags after lawmakers voted Monday night to kill a proposal requiring major supermarkets to nix them by 2010.
The City Council voted 3-11 after some lawmakers said the proposal would unfairly burden grocers already tackling escalating food prices.
“I think the concept is a good concept, but I think the timing happens to be off,” said District 2 Councilman Nicholas D?Adamo Jr. “And keep in mind, bags don?t litter. People do.”
The bill, sponsored by District 1 Councilman James Kraft, would have required supermarkets with at least $500,000 in annual sales to use only recyclable paper bags. Under amendments approved by a council committee last week, stores would post signs warning shoppers of the ban by Jan. 1 and implement it one year later.
On Monday, Kraft vowed to introduce legislation more palatable to grocers, saying plastic bags can take 1,000 years to degrade, choking Baltimore?s waterways and threatening wildlife.
“If we keep doing things they way we?ve always done them, then we will keep getting the results we?ve always gotten,” Kraft said.
Grocers at a hearing last week said paper bags aren?t necessarily more eco-friendly than paper, requiring four times as much energy to manufacture and ship, and costing about 5 cents per bag, compared with 2 cents for plastic.
Bags required under Kraft?s proposal could cost about 10 cents each, said Robert Santoni Jr. of Santoni?s market on Lombard Street, and those costs would be passed on to consumers.
Many consumers in low-income neighborhoods can?t afford reusable bags, either, he said.
“You might have people walking down the street with red meat or chicken wings under their arms,” he said.
The city of Annapolis shelved a similar proposal last year, and the idea never made it out of a General Assembly committee earlier this year.
Only San Francisco has passed a ban, though other cities are considering taxing plastic bags or requiring grocers to recycle them.
