Plastic bag manufacturers stand to sell 9 billion additional plastic bags simply by gathering enough signatures for a ballot measure to repeal the state’s plastic bag ban, which is scheduled to take effect July 1.

Bag makers say they’ll finish submitting the necessary signatures by Monday’s deadline, which would land the referendum on the November 2016 ballot. Once a referendum qualifies, the law it seeks to overturn cannot take effect until after voters have their say, according to state law.

That means that manufacturers would have an additional 16 months to sell plastic bags in the state, even if their referendum fails. That amounts to $145 million worth of bags that would otherwise be banned, according to calculations by the pro-ban Californians Against Waste.

“Big plastic stands to benefit whether or not the referendum passes, while Californians are left with more plastic in the ocean,” said Chad Nelsen, CEO of the Surfrider Foundation, another group backing the bag ban.

Nelsen points to polling strongly supporting the ban – including an October USC Dornsife poll showing that 59 percent of voters favor it – as evidence that the referendum will likely fail, and said plastic bag makers simply want to delay the inevitable.

But manufacturers counter that the ban – which would require customers wanting bags to either use reusable sacks or buy paper ones for 10 cents each – is a ploy by grocery stores to make more money. They say voters have a right to have the final word on a bill approved by the state Legislature.

“We’re not doing this so we can sell bags for another 16 months,” said Mark Daniels, chairman of the American Plastic Bag Alliance. “When consumers understand that this is a cash grab by the grocers, they oppose this horrible legislation.”

Daniels cited internal APBA polling, which he says shows that voter sentiment shifts in the group’s favor when poll respondents are told that grocers will make millions from selling paper bags.

Ron Fong, president of the California Grocers Association, says the group’s support for the measure stems from a desire to have a uniform law throughout the state rather than a patchwork of local ordinances.

Environmental debate

Backers of the statewide plastic bag ban say it’s needed to reduce litter and protect marine life. Those arguments have been key in persuading 138 California cities and counties – accounting for 36 percent of the state’s population – to approve similar bans now in effect.

But the bag industry says its product’s role in litter and sea pollution is greatly overstated. Industry representatives punch holes in key statistics cited by ban proponents, who in turn offer evidence that the bag industry’s data is flawed.

Scrutiny of the data from both sides, though, can help bring the picture into focus – as well as reveal the manipulation of statistics:

• Bag reuse. California vs. Big Plastic, the environmental coalition behind the statewide ban effort, cites an EPA study as evidence that 88 percent of plastic bags are used only once. But what the study actually says is that 88 percent are not recycled – a statistic APBA says doesn’t account for the all the bags that end up in the landfill after being reused as garbage sacks and dog poop bags.

“They used the wrong category to create an emotional appeal for banning bags,” said Phil Rozenski, director of marketing and sustainability for Novolex. Novolex is the parent company of Hilex Poly, the nation’s largest plastic bag manufacturer.

APBA points to a 2007 poll it commissioned of 502 people, in which 92 percent said they reused plastic bags. Ban proponents said the reuse rate is nowhere near that high, pointing out that the question was, “Do you or does anyone in your household ever reuse plastic shopping bags?”

“That is far different from ‘How many bags actually get reused?’” said Steven Maviglio, campaign manager for California vs. Big Plastic.

• Shoreline litter. Maviglio cites a 2008 Coastal Commission report that says 13.5 percent of shoreline litter is plastic bags and a 25-year Coastal Commission survey that shows plastic bags are the most common beach trash item after cigarette butts.

Rozenski countered with an Ocean Conservancy study that found that plastic bags accounted for 1.7 percent of beach trash collected in California. The Ocean Conservancy had cigarette butts topping the list, followed by food wrappers, bottle caps, straws and stirrers, and plastic bottles. Plastic grocery sacks are sixth on the list.

• Harm to marine life. The 2008 Coastal Commission report says, “Studies of the impacts of plastic bags have identified the following problems: death of whales by ingestion, use by birds as nesting material and blockage of sea turtle hatchling migration.”

But APBA spokesman Jon Berrier said, “By focusing on a particular product that has a minimal effect, you are ignoring much larger problems facing the environment.” These include boat strikes, loss of habitat and discarded fishing nets, according to studies cited by the APBA.

• Jobs. “The loss of jobs isn’t worth the impact on cleanup,” said Assemblyman Don Wagner, R-Irvine, who voted against the bill.

But ban advocates point out that most bags are made out of state – and that 98 percent of the $3.2 million raised to qualify the referendum for the ballot came from out-of-state bag makers and their chemical suppliers. South Carolina-based Hilex Poly – which has eight plastic sack factories, none in California – pitched in $1.7 million.

Assemblyman Matthew Harper, R-Huntington Beach, was a Huntington Beach councilman when he opposed that City Council’s vote last year vote to ban plastic bags. He said he plans to introduce legislation to overturn the statewide ban. “The consumer can make the decision not to take a plastic bag and the retailers can make the choice not to sell them,” he said, dubbing the bag ban a “nanny state” law.

Local efforts

With the likelihood that the ban will not take effect July 1, ban proponents say they have another strategy to cut down on the use of plastic bags before the November 2016 election.

They will continue lobbying cities to implement bans while also campaigning to convince consumers and grocers to stop using plastic bags.

“Our goal is to have no plastic bags left in California by the time voters vote on this,” said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste.

He points to federal Environmental Protection Agency data showing that plastic bag use is declining in California and nationwide. In 2012, about 13 billion retail plastic bags were used in the state and he calculates that about 9.3 billion will be used in 2015. That’s close to the industry’s estimate of 8.9 billion for the new year.

The statewide ban would apply to chain grocery stores, pharmacies, convenience stores and liquor shops, the same as many local bans. That accounts for about 80 percent of all single-use plastic bags. That means that 9.1 billion bags would be reduced to 2.5 billion if the statewide ban took effect July 1 rather than in November 2016, according to Murray.

Beside chipping away at plastic bag use by pushing for more local bans, proponents point to the USC Dornsife poll as evidence that local bans help build support for such laws on a broader scale.

While 59 percent of all voters polled supported a statewide ban, that number jumped to 69 percent among those who lived in cities that already had bans.

The bag industry dismisses some opponents’ speculation that they simply seek to buy 16 more months of plastic bag sales and will not campaign for the measure itself. APBA’s Daniels said the profit margin on the group’s product is about 5 percent, which would mean about $7 million dollars profit on the additional bags sold during the 16 months. Given that the group already spent $3 million gathering signatures, he called the profit over that interim period negligible.

Contact the writer: mwisckol@ocregister.com