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Home My WebLink AboutMaterials Distributed at Meeting Materials Distributed At City Council Meeting 05/03/2016 4 "a Lisa Mussenden From: Mary Buttice Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2016 12:58 PM To: Dominic Lazzaretto Cc: Lisa Mussenden Subject: FW: Please vote no on plastic bag ban Good afternoon Mayor and City Council, Please see email below. Thanks Mary Mary Buttice Executive Assistant, City Manager's Office City of Arcadia 240 W. Huntington Drive,Arcadia, CA 91007 Phone:626-821-4302 Fax 626-446-5729 mbutticeArcadiaCA.gov From: Mark Budde [mailto:markbuddegmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2016 12:52 PM To: City Council Email Subject: Please vote no on plastic bag ban Hello city council members, and welcome to the new members. I encourage you to vote no on the plastic bag ban tonight. I am an environmentally conscious Arcadian - I ride my bike to work and have installed drip irrigation in my yard -but I still encourage you to vote no on the plastic bag ban this evening. I'm very supportive of most pro-environment measures that the city has recently considered, such as replacing street medians with decomposed granite and installing LED street lights. I am supportive of reducing litter in our city, but I think the plastic bag ban would only have a negative impact on our city. I used to live in a suburb of Seattle, and our family chose to shop at the grocery store just outside of city limits, specifically to avoid the bag ban. Plastic bags use very little resources to produce, and require less energy and water to produce than paper bags. They are also greener to produce than reusable bags, unless the reusable bag is used hundreds of times. I have never had a reusable bag last hundreds of washes before falling apart. Reusable bags also require washing after every use, which will aggravate our current drought situation. Without washing after each use, reusable bags contribute to food born illness. How many hospitalizations or deaths would be a reasonable trade off for banning plastic bags? Is one already too many? Personally, I am already affected by paper vs plastic bags. In my experience, Trader Joe's has the best eggs for the best price, and I will always buy Trader Joe's eggs if possible. However, sometimes my wife asks me to pick up eggs on my way home from work. Because I am on a bike, and I don't want to put eggs in my backpack, I need a plastic bag to carry my eggs home. Trader Joe's doesn't have plastic bags and the paper bags are not flexible enough to ride with, so I stop at Ralph's. If the bag ban is implemented, I will have to ride all the way 1 home, then get in my car, then drive back to the grocery store, then come back home. This is a substantial time burden for me, since our evenings are already too short, not to mention a waste of gasoline. In conclusion, I'm happy to see that our city council in environmentally concerned. I think, however, that this legislation fails to be pro-environment, but succeeds in making us feel like we are doing something positive when we are not, and further burdens our citizens. I'm glad that you choose to use reusable bags, but please realize that your solution doesn't work for everyone. Again, thank you for your service to our community! -Mark Budde 2 Lisa Mussenden From: Mary Buttice Sent: Friday, April 22, 2016 7:32 AM To: Dominic Lazzaretto; Lisa Mussenden Subject: Ban on plastic bags Good morning Mayor and City Council, Please see email below. Thanks Mary Mary Buttice Executive Assistant, City Manager's Office City of Arcadia 240 W. Huntington Drive,Arcadia, CA 91007 Phone:626-821-4302 Fax 626-446-5729 mbutticeArcadiaCA.gov From: Rebecca Jensen [mailto:blessedinarcadia@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, April 22, 2016 2:45 AM To: City Council Email Subject: Ban on plastic bags Dear Council, I was quite surprised to hear that the council had decided to go ahead with the ban on plastic bags right before an election and also without the input of the general public. The bags that are currently used by the markets are not actually plastic but are made of some type of material that is biodegradable. I do not feel that they are a threat to our landfills. Actually the ban will result in the public purchasing actual plastic bags such as the Glad brand (which are not biodegradable to use as trash can liners since the market no longer provides bags for this use. I personally feel that the ban on these bags is a ploy for retailers to increase their income by placing a charge on each bag. As a registered nurse I would like to bring up the fact that there is a health threat regarding the use of the reusable bags. They pose a threat of cross contamination. Example; The bag is used to carry fresh meats and fish during one trip to the market and the meat or fish drip liquids into the bags The next trip to the market the same bag is used for vegetables and fruits. The bacteria left behind by the meat/fish drippings can be transferred to the the next food carried in the bag which has been contaminated now poses a risk for ecoli and other nasty bacterias. Slncerely, Becki Jensen Becki 1 Ross S. Heckmann 1214 Valencia Way Arcadia,CA 91006 (626)256-4664 April 27,2016 City Council Members,City of Arcadia P.O. Box 60021 Arcadia,CA 91066-6021 Re:Single-Use Plastic Bag Ordinance-SUPPORT Dear Mayor Beck&City Council Members, By the way,congratulations to newly elected(or re-elected)City Council Members April Verlato and Mayor Pro Tern Peter Amundson. Also,thanks to the City Council Members continuing their services, namely,Mayor Tom Beck,City Council Member Roger Chandler,and City Council Member Sho Tay. I urge your support for the single-use bag ordinance scheduled to come before the City Council on May 3,2016. If a state-wide ban is enacted this November,so much the better;if it is not,then at least Arcadia will be doing Its part to deal with this terrible problem. Single-use plastic bags are damaging to the environment and wildlife,expensive to clean up,and an easily preventable source of litter. 148 cities and counties in California have already successfully banned plastic bags. According to a new report launched at the World Economic Forum,at least 8 metric tons of plastic debris enters the ocean every year,which is the equivalent of dumping the contents of one garbage truck into the ocean every minute.The report warns that there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050 if we don't do something about it. The average time of use of a disposable bag is 12 minutes,but they persist as pollution in the environment for decades. Even when properly disposed of,bags tend to blow out of trash cans,solid waste vehicles and landfills into streets,parks and waterways. California's Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery found that less than 3%of these single-use plastic bags are recycled in California. Plastic bags don't biodegrade,but instead break into small pieces that can attract surrounding toxins to contaminate the environment and food chain. According to The Ocean Conservancy,single-use plastic bags are one of the most commonly found items at beach clean ups,and are one of the deadliest threats to marine wildlife. City Council Members,City of Arcadia April 28, 2016 Page 2 One year after San Jose's bag ordinance went into effect;there was an 89%reduction of plastic bags in storm drain systems,a 60%reduction in creeks and rivers,and a 59%reduction in streets and neighborhoods. Plastic bags eat up taxpayer dollars in cleanup costs. The National Resources Defense Council estimates that for California,the overall cost to protect our waters from litter is roughly$428 million each year-- with between 8%to 25%attributable to plastic bags alone according to clean up data from San Jose and Los Angeles County. Based on this information,an estimated 34 million to 107 million dollars is spent each year to manage plastic bag litter in our state. Please support the single-use bag ordinance scheduled to come before the City Council on May 3, 2016. Thanks you for your attention to this matter. Meanwhile,I remain, Very truly yours, 00.0 S. Ufrrrn Ross S.Heckmann