Hello, I am for the ban. I live and own a small business in downtown. It is well documented where millions of these bags end up, and what impact they have on our wild/marine life, not to mention the contribution to greenhouse gasses and toxic overload to our air quality in the production. I also believe that the governing body is charge of such subjects, should turn their attention on the mega chains such as Walmart. It is a very common practice for shops in Europe to have reusable plastic shopping bags for sale at POP. I don’t believe a 10c charge will affect consumer spending! I see the ban as a momentous eco move for the better and I hope it passes!
Sandy Izer, Emporium Antiques since 1988. . .Everything we sell is all about recycling. No bag is "one use." Almost 100% of the plastic bags we issue are "used." Will you demand we charge customers for these recycled bags?
Please educate yourself on the effectiveness of this legislation. Studies show bag bans and taxes haven’t meaningfully reduced overall litter or waste anywhere they’ve been tried. Not anywhere. What they have been shown to do is heap unfair costs on low and fixed-income families and add more red tape to local businesses. The environment doesn’t benefit, and neither do people.
Plastic bags are the most environmentally friendly option at the checkout. American-made plastic bags are produced from byproducts of natural gas, not oil. They’re 100% recyclable and highly reused. Studies show that alternatives that seem “greener” actually place a greater burden on the environment because they require more natural resources to produce and transport, and they emit more carbon throughout their lifecycles. They need more energy to recycle – if they’re recyclable at all.
According to the EPA, “plastic bags and sacks” account for 0.3% of municipal solid waste. Plastic retail bags are a fraction of this number. Without plastic grocery bags, people purchase replacement bags — often made of thicker, heavier plastic — and then send those bags to the landfill instead. In Austin, Texas, landfill waste increased after a bag ban because shoppers used and disposed of thicker plastic reusable bags in the place of standard plastic grocery bags.
In Washington, D.C., a bag tax hasn’t improved litter or reduced bag use at all. According to a Washington Post investigation, D.C. collected roughly $10 million since 2010 without making any environmental progress. And the tax revenue keeps growing every year.
California implemented a statewide ban on plastic bags in 2016. An Ocean Conservancy survey showed a negligible 0.2% decrease in plastic bag litter as a percentage of overall litter. California’s plastic bag ban led to an increase in carbon emissions due to a surge in trash bag purchases (which use more plastic than traditional retail bags) as well as an increase in paper bag usage.
I suppose this proposed taxation is a posturing effort to save the environment. Sure, everyone should dramatically reuse or limit the use of plastic bags. However, this legislation is akin to peeing on a forest fire; no effectiveness, lots of unintended consequences,
Hello. My name is Peggi Joy and I am a city resident and downtown business owner. I cannot support the plastic bag ordinance as proposed. The business owner should not be forced to collect fees and bear the burden and thus, the backlash of collecting fees for bags or a (in this case, a partial) bag ban. PLUS, there is a proposed fine only for businesses that don't comply, but not for the citizenry. This is anti-business and forces the burden on only one portion of the citizenry. It seems to punish and blame business. Business just bounced back from a similar situation with covid bans. The City should be forthright and invested/brave enough in its stance on the environmental concern to simply ban plastic bags outright for all. Then if a business must or decides to up its pricing to provide paper or reuseable bags as an option for the customer, the business is not bearing the burden of "blame" nor are they being forced by our governing body to implement/enforce and collect monies from the citizenry/customer. And the citizens can then use the bag of their choice. This is anti-business and puts the business owners between the government and the citizenry. Either total ban for all, citizens and business use alike, or none. Chinese restaurants have used paper bags always so others can too. Certain businesses should not be exempt. Otherwise this is only for show and there is no equity of burden or responsibility. This does not reflect solid environmental policy.
Hi! My name is Catie Serio and my family owns Pretzel and Pizza Creations. While I support the ban from an environmental mindset, it will be extremely difficult to implement for restaurants. Many times customers ask for a bag after ordering, or maybe wont pay for it when they are ordering online, or many many other ways the customer will not end up paying for the bag and we have to provide it anyway. It will also cause another layer of friction in an already tense retail climate between customer and cashier and I can see how this issue could escalate in a problem. Unless the bag cost is somehow added automatically (something we can’t do), I think restaurants should be left out of it.
Hello, my name is Tommy D’Aquino and I am the owner of Luv Pup, a retail store on E Patrick St. Though I support the ordinance to ban the use of single-use plastic bags, I am strongly opposed to merchants being mandated to charge a bag fee. I already use paper bags by choice for environmental concerns as well as for a branding. I am not willing to start charging my customers for the piece of advertising in which I’m placing their purchases.
I am Richard Bailey the owner of Earthly Elements and have been in business for 16 years here. I am strongly opposed to this bad ordinance proposal. These are my thoughts....
1. My first thought was, what in the heck are you thinking? While I am for taking better care of the earth, why would it be the merchant’s job to retrain the public?
2. The Mayor and Board of Aldermen have done so many things to help us during the Pandemic, why would you come up with this crazy idea that will cost us a lot of money, and be a pain to account for.
3. This idea was brought up by Donna, who seems to be a do-gooder that wants to make everyone else do what she wants at no cost to her but at a great cost to us. This is highly unfair to Merchants.
4. I estimate that I use about 15,000 bags per year. A few years ago I switched from Paper bags at a cost of $6,000 per year to a thick 3 mil opaque Plastic bag at a cost of $900 per year, thus saving $5,100. That is a lot of money to give away if I am forced to go back to Paper. Each Merchant will have a huge increase in bag costs.
5. The 10 cent Bag Tax will be income and we will pay Federal and State income tax on it as well as Sate Sales tax.
6. This plan is not enforceable. I don’t see me giving the bag police any information on what I do in my business. It simply is none of their business. This ordinance is a clear over-reach of City Government.
7. I will in no way mention this to my customers and piss them off.
8. This will create another accounting burden for each of us. Some businesses like mine only use a hand-written Ledger and have no system to track things like this. Doing business in Frederick has enough hoops to jump thru.
9. For hundreds of years people go to the store and get something to carry their goods home in. It’s not our job to change public thinking or behavior.
In closing I urge you to kill this proposal and stop wasting time on this issue and work on important things such as Crime, Homelessness and the Drug Problem.
We are Staci and Bill McLauchlan, the owners of DISTRICT Arts. We are generally supported of a ban on single-use plastic bags. However, the nature of our art gallery business is such that almost everything we sell is too big to fit in a paper bag and is vulnerable to damage from rain, ice, and snow. We currently use very large plastic bags to protect the buyers purchases from the elements. Absent these bags, it is likely that we will lose sales on rainy/stormy days. We would request that an exemption be included for artworks.
Harry George III/50 Citizens Way - Apt # 604/Frederick 21701. I am a resident of the City of Frederick and am writing to voice MY SUPPORT for eliminating single use plastic bags and to encourage the use of reusable bags in our fine City. It is not uncommon to see news commentary about the buildup of plastic in our land and waterways. Here in Frederick the amount of plastic bags by the roadside and caught in trees and bushes is dismaying, to say the least. In addition to the litter and plastic pollution, I am increasingly concerned about micro-plastics and how it is negatively affecting environmental health (litter, as well as being ingested by fish and fowl and other animals) and human health. While we cannot solve all issues, this seems a fairly simple one to me: Ban a substance that we don't want in our environment and encourage the use of a reusable resource. I ENCOURAGE ADOPTION of this legislations. Respectfully.
Dear Mayor and Board of Alderpersons,
Kerri Hesley and I would like to submit a petition with 141 signatures in support of the bag legislation. I'll email it in pdf form to Mr. Etzler and all of you, since it appears that the eComment won't accept an attachment.
Thank you for your consideration!
Patrice Gallagher
I am a Frederick resident and a downtown business owner. I welcome a ban on plastic bags, with reasonable accommodations. We already use paper in my shop but I would be happy to see no more plastic bags blowing through downtown, in the trees and in the creek.
I think the fee collection should not be mandatory however, as many downtown retailers already provide branded shopping bags to our customers and forcing us to add a line item to their bill and the extra accounting that goes into it seems unnecessary for us. And hacking to explain the fee to customers at every sale is an unnecessary burden.
While I am not opposed to a plastic bag ban (nor do we use them in our shop, though others may), I cannot support any effort that places the administrative burden on the small business, this is a non-starter. Making the business charge, collect, track, and report those charges, and whatever other administrative burdens that will come with this effort is unfair to us and tone deaf by you. Ban it where you can, allow it where it makes sense, but don’t make businesses do the yeoman’s work to support this just so someone’s resume can be padded with a “look what I did”
Hi! I am a Frederick resident, a downtown Frederick business owner, and a member of the business development committee. I would like to offer my thoughts on the proposed ordinance. I was initially 100% supportive of this ordinance as it seemed like it would help the environment, but after doing more research, it appears that plastic bag bans can have an adverse effect on the environment because they cause sales of garbage bags to go up, and because single use plastic bags actually have a smaller carbon footprint than paper and cotton reusable bags (on the flipside, they cause way more litter). So before I can say I fully support a plastic bag ban, I think the city should do more research to see if it will actually have the desired effect, and I would also recommend the city look more into the bag fee, which I think has shown to be more effective from an environmental impact standpoint. Also, I think the exemptions make a lot of sense. However, with all the exceptions and exemptions, I question if the ban will actually cut down substantially on plastic use (atleast in the downtown area) since so much will be exempted. Perhaps the city could offer a subsidy for businesses who switch to compostable plastic bags as a way to accommodate exemptions but also cut down on non-biodegradable plastic use?
For the bag fee, I'd generally be supportive of it. As I mentioned above, I think a bag fee might be much more effective in terms of actually helping the environment because it will encourage folks to bring their own bags. However, I think more clarification on the logistics of the fee would be helpful (For example, will the fees collected be considered part of merchants' FAGI and need to be taxed as income? Since the bags are technically being sold, does that mean merchants will need to charge sales tax for them?). Overall, I think that when deciding on this ordinance the Board & Mayor need to really think about what is best for the environment and use that as I the guiding force. I understand and appreciate the concern from businesses regarding increased cost, required reporting, etc, but I think that ultimately the community needs to do what is best for the environment. Afterall, we want to have a clean, healthy planet to leave to the next generation, and if that means we need to cut down on plastic or pay $0.10 for a bag, I think it's worth it. Thank you for reading my feedback!
I’m not opposed to the ban but I am not looking forward to making this part of the customer experience in my store, should there be objections when a customer is informed of the fee.
I have another concern, which is the use of plastic garment bags for formal dresses/attire, which we sell. Wondering if it would be considered permissible along with dry cleaning.
Hello, I am for the ban. I live and own a small business in downtown. It is well documented where millions of these bags end up, and what impact they have on our wild/marine life, not to mention the contribution to greenhouse gasses and toxic overload to our air quality in the production. I also believe that the governing body is charge of such subjects, should turn their attention on the mega chains such as Walmart. It is a very common practice for shops in Europe to have reusable plastic shopping bags for sale at POP. I don’t believe a 10c charge will affect consumer spending! I see the ban as a momentous eco move for the better and I hope it passes!
Sandy Izer, Emporium Antiques since 1988. . .Everything we sell is all about recycling. No bag is "one use." Almost 100% of the plastic bags we issue are "used." Will you demand we charge customers for these recycled bags?
Please educate yourself on the effectiveness of this legislation. Studies show bag bans and taxes haven’t meaningfully reduced overall litter or waste anywhere they’ve been tried. Not anywhere. What they have been shown to do is heap unfair costs on low and fixed-income families and add more red tape to local businesses. The environment doesn’t benefit, and neither do people.
Plastic bags are the most environmentally friendly option at the checkout. American-made plastic bags are produced from byproducts of natural gas, not oil. They’re 100% recyclable and highly reused. Studies show that alternatives that seem “greener” actually place a greater burden on the environment because they require more natural resources to produce and transport, and they emit more carbon throughout their lifecycles. They need more energy to recycle – if they’re recyclable at all.
According to the EPA, “plastic bags and sacks” account for 0.3% of municipal solid waste. Plastic retail bags are a fraction of this number. Without plastic grocery bags, people purchase replacement bags — often made of thicker, heavier plastic — and then send those bags to the landfill instead. In Austin, Texas, landfill waste increased after a bag ban because shoppers used and disposed of thicker plastic reusable bags in the place of standard plastic grocery bags.
In Washington, D.C., a bag tax hasn’t improved litter or reduced bag use at all. According to a Washington Post investigation, D.C. collected roughly $10 million since 2010 without making any environmental progress. And the tax revenue keeps growing every year.
California implemented a statewide ban on plastic bags in 2016. An Ocean Conservancy survey showed a negligible 0.2% decrease in plastic bag litter as a percentage of overall litter. California’s plastic bag ban led to an increase in carbon emissions due to a surge in trash bag purchases (which use more plastic than traditional retail bags) as well as an increase in paper bag usage.
I suppose this proposed taxation is a posturing effort to save the environment. Sure, everyone should dramatically reuse or limit the use of plastic bags. However, this legislation is akin to peeing on a forest fire; no effectiveness, lots of unintended consequences,
Hello. My name is Peggi Joy and I am a city resident and downtown business owner. I cannot support the plastic bag ordinance as proposed. The business owner should not be forced to collect fees and bear the burden and thus, the backlash of collecting fees for bags or a (in this case, a partial) bag ban. PLUS, there is a proposed fine only for businesses that don't comply, but not for the citizenry. This is anti-business and forces the burden on only one portion of the citizenry. It seems to punish and blame business. Business just bounced back from a similar situation with covid bans. The City should be forthright and invested/brave enough in its stance on the environmental concern to simply ban plastic bags outright for all. Then if a business must or decides to up its pricing to provide paper or reuseable bags as an option for the customer, the business is not bearing the burden of "blame" nor are they being forced by our governing body to implement/enforce and collect monies from the citizenry/customer. And the citizens can then use the bag of their choice. This is anti-business and puts the business owners between the government and the citizenry. Either total ban for all, citizens and business use alike, or none. Chinese restaurants have used paper bags always so others can too. Certain businesses should not be exempt. Otherwise this is only for show and there is no equity of burden or responsibility. This does not reflect solid environmental policy.
Hi! My name is Catie Serio and my family owns Pretzel and Pizza Creations. While I support the ban from an environmental mindset, it will be extremely difficult to implement for restaurants. Many times customers ask for a bag after ordering, or maybe wont pay for it when they are ordering online, or many many other ways the customer will not end up paying for the bag and we have to provide it anyway. It will also cause another layer of friction in an already tense retail climate between customer and cashier and I can see how this issue could escalate in a problem. Unless the bag cost is somehow added automatically (something we can’t do), I think restaurants should be left out of it.
Hello, my name is Tommy D’Aquino and I am the owner of Luv Pup, a retail store on E Patrick St. Though I support the ordinance to ban the use of single-use plastic bags, I am strongly opposed to merchants being mandated to charge a bag fee. I already use paper bags by choice for environmental concerns as well as for a branding. I am not willing to start charging my customers for the piece of advertising in which I’m placing their purchases.
I am Richard Bailey the owner of Earthly Elements and have been in business for 16 years here. I am strongly opposed to this bad ordinance proposal. These are my thoughts....
1. My first thought was, what in the heck are you thinking? While I am for taking better care of the earth, why would it be the merchant’s job to retrain the public?
2. The Mayor and Board of Aldermen have done so many things to help us during the Pandemic, why would you come up with this crazy idea that will cost us a lot of money, and be a pain to account for.
3. This idea was brought up by Donna, who seems to be a do-gooder that wants to make everyone else do what she wants at no cost to her but at a great cost to us. This is highly unfair to Merchants.
4. I estimate that I use about 15,000 bags per year. A few years ago I switched from Paper bags at a cost of $6,000 per year to a thick 3 mil opaque Plastic bag at a cost of $900 per year, thus saving $5,100. That is a lot of money to give away if I am forced to go back to Paper. Each Merchant will have a huge increase in bag costs.
5. The 10 cent Bag Tax will be income and we will pay Federal and State income tax on it as well as Sate Sales tax.
6. This plan is not enforceable. I don’t see me giving the bag police any information on what I do in my business. It simply is none of their business. This ordinance is a clear over-reach of City Government.
7. I will in no way mention this to my customers and piss them off.
8. This will create another accounting burden for each of us. Some businesses like mine only use a hand-written Ledger and have no system to track things like this. Doing business in Frederick has enough hoops to jump thru.
9. For hundreds of years people go to the store and get something to carry their goods home in. It’s not our job to change public thinking or behavior.
In closing I urge you to kill this proposal and stop wasting time on this issue and work on important things such as Crime, Homelessness and the Drug Problem.
We are Staci and Bill McLauchlan, the owners of DISTRICT Arts. We are generally supported of a ban on single-use plastic bags. However, the nature of our art gallery business is such that almost everything we sell is too big to fit in a paper bag and is vulnerable to damage from rain, ice, and snow. We currently use very large plastic bags to protect the buyers purchases from the elements. Absent these bags, it is likely that we will lose sales on rainy/stormy days. We would request that an exemption be included for artworks.
Harry George III/50 Citizens Way - Apt # 604/Frederick 21701. I am a resident of the City of Frederick and am writing to voice MY SUPPORT for eliminating single use plastic bags and to encourage the use of reusable bags in our fine City. It is not uncommon to see news commentary about the buildup of plastic in our land and waterways. Here in Frederick the amount of plastic bags by the roadside and caught in trees and bushes is dismaying, to say the least. In addition to the litter and plastic pollution, I am increasingly concerned about micro-plastics and how it is negatively affecting environmental health (litter, as well as being ingested by fish and fowl and other animals) and human health. While we cannot solve all issues, this seems a fairly simple one to me: Ban a substance that we don't want in our environment and encourage the use of a reusable resource. I ENCOURAGE ADOPTION of this legislations. Respectfully.
Dear Mayor and Board of Alderpersons,
Kerri Hesley and I would like to submit a petition with 141 signatures in support of the bag legislation. I'll email it in pdf form to Mr. Etzler and all of you, since it appears that the eComment won't accept an attachment.
Thank you for your consideration!
Patrice Gallagher
I am a Frederick resident and a downtown business owner. I welcome a ban on plastic bags, with reasonable accommodations. We already use paper in my shop but I would be happy to see no more plastic bags blowing through downtown, in the trees and in the creek.
I think the fee collection should not be mandatory however, as many downtown retailers already provide branded shopping bags to our customers and forcing us to add a line item to their bill and the extra accounting that goes into it seems unnecessary for us. And hacking to explain the fee to customers at every sale is an unnecessary burden.
While I am not opposed to a plastic bag ban (nor do we use them in our shop, though others may), I cannot support any effort that places the administrative burden on the small business, this is a non-starter. Making the business charge, collect, track, and report those charges, and whatever other administrative burdens that will come with this effort is unfair to us and tone deaf by you. Ban it where you can, allow it where it makes sense, but don’t make businesses do the yeoman’s work to support this just so someone’s resume can be padded with a “look what I did”
Hi! I am a Frederick resident, a downtown Frederick business owner, and a member of the business development committee. I would like to offer my thoughts on the proposed ordinance. I was initially 100% supportive of this ordinance as it seemed like it would help the environment, but after doing more research, it appears that plastic bag bans can have an adverse effect on the environment because they cause sales of garbage bags to go up, and because single use plastic bags actually have a smaller carbon footprint than paper and cotton reusable bags (on the flipside, they cause way more litter). So before I can say I fully support a plastic bag ban, I think the city should do more research to see if it will actually have the desired effect, and I would also recommend the city look more into the bag fee, which I think has shown to be more effective from an environmental impact standpoint. Also, I think the exemptions make a lot of sense. However, with all the exceptions and exemptions, I question if the ban will actually cut down substantially on plastic use (atleast in the downtown area) since so much will be exempted. Perhaps the city could offer a subsidy for businesses who switch to compostable plastic bags as a way to accommodate exemptions but also cut down on non-biodegradable plastic use?
For the bag fee, I'd generally be supportive of it. As I mentioned above, I think a bag fee might be much more effective in terms of actually helping the environment because it will encourage folks to bring their own bags. However, I think more clarification on the logistics of the fee would be helpful (For example, will the fees collected be considered part of merchants' FAGI and need to be taxed as income? Since the bags are technically being sold, does that mean merchants will need to charge sales tax for them?). Overall, I think that when deciding on this ordinance the Board & Mayor need to really think about what is best for the environment and use that as I the guiding force. I understand and appreciate the concern from businesses regarding increased cost, required reporting, etc, but I think that ultimately the community needs to do what is best for the environment. Afterall, we want to have a clean, healthy planet to leave to the next generation, and if that means we need to cut down on plastic or pay $0.10 for a bag, I think it's worth it. Thank you for reading my feedback!
Leslie Atanasoff, Frederick
I’m not opposed to the ban but I am not looking forward to making this part of the customer experience in my store, should there be objections when a customer is informed of the fee.
I have another concern, which is the use of plastic garment bags for formal dresses/attire, which we sell. Wondering if it would be considered permissible along with dry cleaning.