Stamford prohibited plastic bags. Now reps consider banning paper bags

Instacart shopper Amanda Padilla, of Stamford, uses paper bags to fulfill her customer's grocery order at ShopRite in Stamford, Conn. Oct. 9, 2024. Stamford has already prohibited single-use plastic bags and is now exploring the idea of banning paper bags as well.

Cos Cob's Katie Butler loads a paper bag into her car outside ShopRite in Stamford, Conn. Oct. 9, 2024. Stamford has already prohibited single-use plastic bags and is now exploring the idea of banning paper bags as well.

Shoppers leave Trader Joe's in Stamford, Conn., in March 2020.

STAMFORD — Months after speaking about possibly lifting a city requirement to charge customers 10 cents for a paper bag at checkout, members of the Board of Representatives have turned to another idea: prohibiting stores from even selling or giving out paper bags.

City Rep. Virgil de la Cruz, D-2, a deputy majority leader of the board who often advocates for measures to combat climate change, presented draft language for a potential ban on paper bags to the board’s Legislative and Rules Committee last week. But the committee decided not to advance the proposal to a public hearing yet and first conduct more research.

In June, Reps. Jeffrey Stella, D-9, and Anabel Figueroa, D-8, argued that the required 10-cent charge for a paper bag — which was included in a 2018 ordinance that banned the distribution of plastic carry-out bags — should be dropped as residents struggle with the cost of groceries.

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Ahead of the June meeting, the executive director of the nonprofit Citizens Campaign for the Environment sent a letter to the board opposing the idea.

“The paper bag fee, in addition to the ban on plastic bags, is important to continue driving consumers to change behavior and bring their own bags,” wrote Adrienne Esposito. “While plastic bags are the more visible problem, paper bags also come with environmental costs. It requires more energy and water to produce and transport paper bags than plastic bags. Producing paper bags also requires cutting down millions of trees in the U.S. annually.”

Representatives also noted that paper bags end up in the trash or the recycling, contributing to disposal and processing costs covered by taxpayer dollars.

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During the June meeting, District 16 Rep. Phil Berns, a Democrat, said that if the goal is to encourage people to use reusable bags, perhaps the board should prohibit paper bags as well as plastic bags.

Rep. Megan Cottrell, D-4, said it was worth looking into the idea.

“Costco sells a lot of products and they don’t (provide) a single bag. It’s on you,” she said. “I think we should get rid of all the bags. But we need to do more research.”

But when the Legislative and Rules Committee met last week, Cottrell said that after a lot of thought, she believed the board should instead focus on single-use utensils, which aren’t recyclable. Stamford has already prohibited restaurants from giving out single-use plastic straws unless a customer asks for one.

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“As opposed to a straight-up elimination of paper bags, could we maybe work with the mayor’s office and come up with ... some sort of incentive for a retailer, say, that commits to no longer distribute anything but reusable bags?” Cottrell asked. “Because I’m afraid that we’re just going to be frustrating people if we eliminate bags completely.”

De la Cruz said he was open to the idea of incentives. He also said that board colleagues have approached him about proposing an amendment to the city’s ordinances to add a prohibition on plastic utensils.

Fellow Deputy Majority Leader Eric Morson, D-13, said he would be wary about banning paper bags in addition to plastic bags unless there were a “more universal alternative” to both.

“We have to be very careful about what kind of cost burden we may be putting on businesses, especially the small businesses, I’m most concerned about,” Morson said.

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Rep. Nina Sherwood, D-8, the board’s majority leader, said the committee should hear from grocery stores and other businesses about the potential consequences of a ban.

“If we were to move forward with something like this, maybe there’s some things that we haven’t even thought about that we should incorporate into an ordinance like this to make the transition to no bags smoother,” Sherwood said.

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