News

City trashes plastic bag costs

May 6, 2012 – The Orillia Packet & Times –

Orillia’s five-cent plastic bag fee has been eliminated. At Monday’s council meeting, Coun. Andrew Hill brought forward a motion to have city council remove the fee, which has been charged at retail outlets since November 2009.

Grants used for bag benches

April 28, 2012 – WCF Courier –

The city here needed benches to beautify and add places to relax along the U.S. Highway 63 paved trail and an upcoming soft trail along Black Hawk Creek. But Sandie Deahl said the city of Hudson also wanted the benches to be made with recycled plastic bags to send a message.

Hilex CEO Stan Bikulege on Hannity

April 8, 2012 –

Stan Bikulege, CEO of Hilex Poly, appears on Fox News’s Hannity to discuss the current political landscape around plastic bags — and how his company must focus on fighting bans and taxes instead of working to build new, green recycling plants.

Editorial: L.A. ups bag-ban ante

April 5, 2012 – The Orange County Register –

It’s become trendy for California cities to ban plastic grocery bags and force retailers to charge a fee for providing patrons with paper bags. We have watched a few cities in Orange County, particularly along the coast, follow this unfortunate track but now the second-largest city in the nation looks to be moving ahead in the same misguided fashion with an ordinance that not only bans plastic bags, but will eventually do the same for paper.

Guest Opinion: Plastic Bags Make Sense for Sammamish & Issaquah

April 3, 2012 – Sammamish-Issaquah Patch –

With the Issaquah City Council delaying their vote on an ordinance that would ban plastic bags and tax paper bags, and in light of a recent Sammamish-Issaquah Patch poll demonstrating that local residents have mixed opinions on the issue, I thought I would take this opportunity to explain why banning or taxing plastic bags is not the right decision for Sammamish and Issaquah consumers, businesses, and the economy.

James Parrinello Statement Regarding Lee Schmeer v. Los Angeles County

March 22, 2012 – LOS ANGELES, CALIF. –

James Parrinello, lead counsel for the plaintiffs and senior litigation partner at Nielsen Merksamer Parrinello Gross & Leoni LLP, released the following statement regarding today’s California Superior Court ruling on Proposition 26.

“It can be difficult to have ordinances declared unconstitutional in the Superior Court. We always expected this case to be decided at the appellate level, and are confident the appellate courts will uphold the will of the people as expressed in Proposition 26, which protects Californians from hidden taxes levied by local governments without a vote of the people. We anticipate the appellate courts will ultimately strike down the illegal bag tax imposed by L.A. County.”

Hilex Poly Statement on Proposition 26 Ruling

March 22, 2012 – LOS ANGELES, CALIF. –

The California Superior Court today ruled on Lee Schmeer v. Los Angeles County. Mark Daniels, Vice President of Sustainability & Environmental Policy for Hilex Poly released the following statement:

“This case is far from resolved. Typically an issue that sets an important tax precedent moves forward in the courts, and we expected this case to be heard in the appellate court. We welcome an open debate about bag bans and taxes, but in this case, the county overreached by imposing a charge that is illegal and a hidden tax, exactly what Proposition 26 intended to stop. Proposition 26 was implemented to counter situations where taxes are labeled by the local government as ‘fees’ in order to circumvent the electoral process. By imposing a bag tax on its residents without a public vote, LA County violated the constitution, and we are confident in our case as it moves to the appellate courts.”

Could a plastic bag ban stop people from being trashy?

February 8, 2012 – Caller.com –

Littering the landscape with plastic shopping bags is indeed a problem. The proposed solution—banning them—doesn’t address the problem at its source, which is the people doing the littering. A bag ban only removes bags from their arsenal, much like a ban on so-called “assault” rifles can change the cosmetics of a law-abiding gun owner’s home arsenal.

Burnett: Plastic Bag Bans Hurt Shoppers, Retailers and Workers

January 18, 2012 – Junkscience.com –

A small but increasing number of cities are in a frenzy to ban plastic shopping bags. More than two dozen cities nationwide have either banned plastic grocery bags (and in some cases, paper bags) entirely, or have imposed a fee for using them in order to encourage the use of reusable bags. However, such policies have hidden costs few seem to recognize.

Austin bag ban pushed with faulty numbers

January 10, 2012 – Texas Watchdog –

City of Austin officials wildly inflated the volume of plastic bags in Austin’s litter stream and the cost to dispose of them, based on a misreading of a key report cited by the officials, one of the authors of the report told Texas Watchdog this afternoon.