POSITIVE PROGRESS

Easton’s plastic bag ordinance prevents circulation of over 1 million bags in first month

Since the passing of the plastic bag ordinance on April 2, single-use plastic bags can no longer be found at the checkout lines of any Easton, Maryland stores. Easton residents have been exclusively using reusable bags (and supplemental paper bags) to bring home their groceries and goods for a little over a month now. To see how big of an impact this has made, the Town of Easton and Easton Economic Development Corporation (Easton EDC) have teamed up to see just how many bags the ordinance has prevented from hitting the streets since its passage.

Easton EDC Director of Strategic Initiatives Deena Kilmon said, “We reached out to the larger local chain stores to get a gauge on how many bags they were going through each month. It was the best way to see where we stand after the ordinance passed.”

After surveying 11 of the largest stores in town (department, hardware, and grocery stores), 7 stores replied with their pre-ban monthly intake of single-use plastic bags. Of the 7 stores that replied, they accounted for 1,006,000 bags that would have circulated around Easton in the last 30 days.

Town of Easton Communications Specialist Greg Mueller remarked, “Make no mistake, this is a low estimate. Some stores we reached out to couldn’t supply us with their numbers, and we only targeted the larger stores.

There’s still a substantial amount that would be coming from medium-sized and smaller stores around Town.” Mueller continued, “Even without all of the data, 1 million bags in 30 days is a pretty staggering number for a Town of our size.”

“We’re just really proud of our Town right now,” Kilmon added. “From our residents to our businesses, everybody has been chipping in to help make this work, and it’s nice to see some numbers backing up that we’re headed in the right direction.”

Businesses have seen a slight uptick in paper bag usage, but reusable bags have been a hot commodity around town. “Almost everywhere we went, they said their reusable bags were flying off of the shelves. Some stores were even restocking daily,” Kilmon stated. She added, “this is really encouraging, because the purpose of the ordinance was to motivate people to be proactive and focus on reusable totes — lessening the environmental impact across the board.”

Easton EDC and Town of Easton plan to give updates on the plastic bag ordinance intermittently throughout the year. Mueller said, “seeing these numbers is a great help, and puts things in perspective, but it will be nice to see how this is positively affecting local watermen, sanitation workers, landfills, and even the average citizen. Time will tell.”

Easton leads the Way Other cities to follow

The plastic bag ordinance was approved by the Town via Ordinance 784, which passed on 9/6/2022 and went into effect 4/2/2023. The Town of Easton’s plastic bag ban prohibits retail establishments from providing single-use plastic bags to customers.

After one month, large scale retail establishments were asked to provide numbers of bags that had been purchased prior to the legislation taking effect. Just a small sample revealed that over one million bags from seven establishments have been kept out of local circulation.

Baltimore has led the way in this type of action, but more cities are to follow. Annapolis has introduced Bill 19-23 and other lawmakers have tried to pass statewide legislation. A bill by then Delegate Brooke Lierman, who is now Comptroller for the State of Maryland, nearly passed in 2020, according to the Sierra Club in this 2020 article. Delaware also passed a complete ban in 2019.

The Easton EDC has been supporting the communication efforts of this ordinance and the impact on our retailers. Several retailers and organizations have stepped up to promote the use of re-usable bags, include the Talbot Waterman’s Association, The Town of Easton, Plastic-Free Easton, Easton Utilities, and The Ivy Cafe.

Courtesy