UPDATE: Council withdraws plan to ban plastic bags

For now, some stores will keep the plastic bags they give to customers.

The Columbia City Council voted unanimously to withdraw an ordinance to ban plastic bags given by grocery and convenience stores. The ordinance would also charge shoppers ten cents for each paper bag they give.

City Manager Mike Matthes originally recommended the council table the ordinance for one year. That would give the city ample time to discuss the issue with the public and other retailers on the issue. Matthes said the city received numerous contacts from both sides of the issue, and thought it best to put the vote off.

However, the council decided to withdraw the plan to avoid leaving pending legislation hanging for more than a year. Several council members agreed that the public reaction to the issue was too great to cast a vote Monday night.

Fifth Ward councilwoman Laura Nauser, an opponent of the bill since its discussion in the fall, said she understood the environmental and heath arguments that surround the ban, but would not support banning a “legal, useful product.”

“I will support educating our community on the importance of recycling,” Nauser said. “I will encourage our retailers to provide more recycling facilities at their locations, and I will certainly support the city’s efforts in increasing our recycling through our trash service.”

Supports of the ordinance, such as the Osage Group and Missouri River Relief, cite the litter the bags cause around town and the state. The city’s stormwater division says the bags are the third-most found trash item in the city’s creeks last year. The Missouri River Relief also said the bags made up a significant amount of trash in the river, also ranking third in specific trash found in the same period.

“These lightweight, single-use bags, or twice-used bags, are really urban tumbleweeds, and we have a problem with them even if people do recycle, and do dispose of them properly,” Sixth Ward councilwoman Barbara Hoppe, a supporter of the ban, said.

Despite her opposition to the ordinance, though, Nauser, along with other council members, strongly opposed a state bill that would restrict cities from passing plastic bag bans.

“I am opposed to anyone banning useful and legal products,” Nauser said. “I am even more opposed to our state representatives getting involved in our local issues.”

Third Ward councilman KarlSkala agreed with that point, asking if the city should pursue formal action requesting the legislature oppose the measure.

Hoppe first referred the issue to the Environment and Energy Commission in September. Jan Dye, a member of the committee who first proposed the idea of the plastic bag ban to the city, said the ban and fee on paper bags was meant to promote city shoppers to use reusable bags.

However, some stores opposed different aspects of the ban. Curtis Chaney, senior vice president of retail for MFA Oil, owner of the Breaktime convenience store chain, wrote a letter detailing some of the difficulties it thought the ordinance would bring.

“We will have to spend sourcing paper bags, stock these in our grocery warehouse and retrain employees in Columbia alone to charge someone for a bag,” Chaney said in the letter.

899 people have signed a petition in support of the ban in Columbia.

The city’s report said its landfill spent more than $45,000 specifically on litter control. According to staff, the city spends between nearly $12,000 and $16,000 on controlling plastic bag waste at the landfill each year.

Although the council withdrew the ordinance, it does not mean they rejected it outright. City staff could draft a new ordinance for the same topic for a later vote.

(Editor’s note, 3/3, 1:29 a.m.: This story has been updated from a previous one, titled “Columbia Council to meet on plastic bag ban.”)