Edmonds embraces bag ban

While Seattle voters crushed the 20-cent bag fee more easily than a school kid crushing a lunch sack, Edmonds residents are overwhelmingly embracing their city's recent ban on plastic retail-checkout bags.

They're remembering their reusable shopping bags. They say they like doing their part for the environment. Stores are adding a paper option, although they're not required to under the law for another year.

"I think the 'Save the Planet' message is getting through," said Edmonds resident Allan Townsend, who walked to a downtown grocery store with his two sons last week, three reusable purple shopping bags in hand.

Yet these same shoppers, unwadding their canvas and recycled grocery bags at stores around town, say they would never have supported Seattle's 20-cent bag fee.

The difference? The Edmonds ban, the first in the state, allows grocers and other retailers to offer paper bags for free. There's no punishment for forgetting your reusable tote, but if you do remember, some stores will give you a small cash rebate. (Other stores around the region also offer small rebates if you bring your own bag.)

One Edmonds store, Petosa's Family Grocer, eliminated plastic shopping bags more than a year ago and has heard almost no complaints, owner Betty Jo Petosa said. Petosa said she was moved to act after seeing an account of "The Swirl," a giant vortex of floating plastic trash in the North Pacific that's larger than the state of Texas. "It's shocking that every piece of plastic we've ever created has not left the earth," she said.

Petosa's offers a 5-cent credit for each reusable shopping bag brought in by customers. About 40 percent of shoppers are now bringing their own. She said paper bags are more expensive than plastic, but with so many customers bringing in reusable bags, she's close to breaking even.

"It's amazing how voluntarily it caught on," she said.

But Petosa said she would have voted against the Seattle bag-fee ordinance.

"I still provide a bag. I don't charge. The way Seattle did it, I would not have supported it," she said. A majority of Seattle voters rejected the 20-cent bag fee in the Aug. 18 primary.

Edmonds didn't wait to see what Seattle would do.

The Edmonds City Council voted July 28 to eliminate disposable-plastic bags at checkout counters in retail stores. Plastic bags are still available for produce and meat. The ordinance gives retailers one year to use up their existing stock of plastic and retrofit checkout counters to accommodate paper bags.

In enacting the ban, Edmonds joined a growing number of cities and countries around the world, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Ireland, Germany and China, a fact that wasn't lost on Edmonds shoppers.

"People in Europe and other countries have been doing this for years and years," said Ann Patterson, who recently carried out her groceries in the bags she had brought into the Edmonds QFC store just off Edmonds Way.

QFC offers customers a 3-cent credit on reusable bags, which can be deducted from the grocery bill or donated to charity. Last year at the Edmonds store, customers brought in 67,000 reusable bags, said Kristin Maas, spokeswoman for QFC. She said that's well above the average for the 74-store chain.

"It's certainly an engaged community," she said.

Across a busy intersection from the QFC, the Edmonds Bartell Drugs has already begun offering paper bags at its checkout stands, said Rebecca Siegmund, vice president for marketing for the drugstore chain. She said the store has enhanced its merchandising of reusable bags and has added reminder signs in the parking lot.

"We jumped right on it in June," she said, when the Edmonds City Council began debating a ban on plastic. Bartell is the one store where managers report some grumbling among customers, particularly seniors, who make up about a third of Edmonds residents.

"They have trouble remembering their bags," Siegmund said. "A few say they're going to take their business outside Edmonds."

But another Edmonds shopper, Howard Cuff, 50, said even though he reuses plastic grocery bags for a variety of purposes, he likes the city's ban.

"I think it's great. I'll go to paper," he said. Then Cuff shrugged, as if he were helpless to criticize his hometown. "I love Edmonds," he said.

Lynn Thompson: 206-464-8305 or lthompson@seattletimes.com

Information in this article, originally published September 6, 2009, was corrected September 8, 2009. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that, "Seattle voters by an almost 60 percent majority rejected the 20-cent bag fee in the Aug. 18 primary." Voters rejected the proposed 20-cent bag fee 53 percent to 47 percent.