Scarsdale Trustees Support Ban on Plastic Bags and Polystyrene Containers

Free plastic bags any polystyrene containers at retail stores in Westchester County may soon be banned if the Westchester County Board of Legislators passes an ordinance preventing their use. At the Scarsdale Village Board meeting on Tuesday night June 9, the Scarsdale Trustees adopted a resolution to support this ban, sending a message to the county.

Environmentalists have argued for years that plastic bags and containers are non-bio-gradable, clog sewers, pose a danger to marine life and release harmful chemicals into the environment. The Sustainability Committee of the Scarsdale Forum issued a report in November 2014 recommending that the Village support the County's proposed ordinance to ban the use of plastic bags and polystyrene containers at the point of sale, and the Scarsdale Trustees voted unanimously to approve the resolution.

Michelle Sterling, who heads the Forum's Sustainability Committee and has been urging the Trustees to move forward with the resolution said, "I'm glad our Mayor and Board of Trustees have listened to their residents who are in support of doing more to protect the environment. I think that this is an important step for Scarsdale and I'm proud that our town is able to provide an example of environmental leadership for other communities in Westchester County and New York State."

Those who use the plastic bags they get at stores for their own refuse will now have to purchase bags for disposal of items at home.

We asked Sterling her thoughts on this and she said, "Studies of LA County (where the ban is in place) for example have shown that grocery stores tend to embed 2 to 5 cents per plastic bag and 5 to 23 cents per paper bag into food prices. Thus, by eliminating the cost to retailers of providing bags free of charge LA County found its ordinance saved approx. $18-$30 per customer per year. Would you spend more than $18 - $30 a year on plastic bags for kitchen trash? I doubt it. "

Sterling continued, "Furthermore, New Yorkers use 10 billion single use carry out bags per year. The NYC Department of Sanitation collects more than 1,700 tons of single use carryout bags per week which equates to 91,000 tons of plastic and costs the city $12.5 million annually to dispose of. Plastic bags are also a major component of litter - and there are costs associated with litter clean up. People may think that they are not paying for their trash disposal because they don't deal with it or that they are not paying for litter clean up because they don't deal with that either - but we are paying for it! We are paying over $100 a ton in tipping fees for Peekskill/Charles Point incineration and that doesn't include what we are paying for having our trash trucked to Peekskill."