PRINCETON — Princeton is considering a fee of between 10 and 25 cents for plastic or paper bags used by shoppers, Mayor Liz Lempert said.



A local environmental group suggested the fee, and the town is investigating whether Princeton can impose the local charge, Lempert said.

"Plastic bags are a pollutant, and I think we need to be moving away from them," Lempert said. "It's just a question of how we do it."

If enacted, Princeton would be the only town in New Jersey to adopt such an ordinance, said Mike Cerra, director of government affairs with the New Jersey State League of Municipalities.

"We don't have a record of anyone doing it in New Jersey," Cerra said. "We haven't located it here yet."

Lempert asked Princeton attorney Trishka Cecil for her legal opinion on the proposal, she said. Cecil is researching the issue, she said Tuesday.

"It's a charge, and so there does seem to be a really important legal question there that we need to answer first before we spend a lot of time on it," Lempert said. "The powers that municipalities have in New Jersey are different than the powers municipalities have in a lot of the western states where a lot of these bag ordinances have passed."

The proposed ordinance would require customers to pay between 10 and 25 cents per bag, with the money going back to the merchant or company. Reusable or already recycled paper bags would be distributed for free instead.

"Plastics are poisonous. We don't have room in our landfills for materials that won't decompose for 1,000 years," said resident Daniel Harris, a member of the group urging for the bag fee. "Chemicals from plastics leach into our ground water; we drink it. They get into the ocean; the fish eat the plastics; we eat the fish. We are poisoning ourselves."

Under the proposal, merchants would use the fee to purchase reusable bags for customers and to keep records on the process, he said.

"The draft ordinance asks for bookkeeping so that the entire municipality can measure the success of the ordinance after adoption," Harris said.

In November, Mercer County voters overwhelmingly rejected a non-binding referendum calling for a 5-cent fee for disposable plastic shopping bags. Statewide legislation has been introduced several times, dating back to 2008. It was most recently introduced last January and referred to the Senate Environment and Energy Committee.

Lempert encouraged the environmentalist group behind the Princeton effort to start talking with area business owners "to see if there's going to be major opposition, if there's going to be lukewarm support or indifference," she said.

John Marshall, president of the Princeton Merchants Association, said while the group is in favor of reducing bag consumption, imposing a fee could carry negative implications for consumers who don't necessarily know where the money is going.

"We feel that it should be a customer's choice," Marshall said. "Don't we as consumers have the ability to choose where we spend our money? The consumer knows best how to spend their money."

For those enrolled in federal or state assistance programs, an exemption would be built into the ordinance, Harris said.

There are alternatives to bag fees that could be more viable, Marshall said. For example, McCaffrey's supermarkets manufacture their own reusable bags and offer discounts to customers who use them, he said.

Nicole Mulvaney may be reached at nmulvaney@njtimes.com. Follow her on Twitter @NicoleMulvaney. Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.