ORANGE VILLAGE, Ohio — Holiday shoppers who browsed the Pinecrest shopping center for gifts Friday morning largely cheered the plastic bag ban enacted in Orange Village in April and the imminent county-wide ban set to go into effect next year.

The Cuyahoga County ban goes into effect July 1, though the city of Cleveland could muddle the seamless implementation of the plan. The city plans to opt out of the county law and will mull how to create its own solution to single-use bags.

Northeast Ohioans and out-of-town visitors here for business and to see family praised the county for its campaign to reduce plastic waste. They said the urgency of the environmental crisis trumps the ease and convenience of plastic bags.

They urged the county to widely communicate the details of the ban to retailers and ensure everyone understands its importance. The out-of-towners, from the United States and abroad, said it’s not difficult to use reusable bags, and they had reason to know. Many of their communities already have similar bans or charge a small fee for single-use bags.

But not everyone was on board completely. One shopper, prone to forgetting reusable bags and uneasy about the potential costs the ban will pass along to consumers, said she’s anxious about the county-wide ban.

“I’m afraid of it,” Ebony Miah, a 33-year-old Cleveland Heights teacher said, as she ordered donuts and considered some holiday shopping. “Number one, it may look like I’m stealing because I have stuff in my hands. Also, I don’t want to carry all that stuff.”

It’s not that she doesn’t have reusable bags: She’s got plenty. But when it comes time to shop, she said she almost always forgets her bag.

Miah understands the plastic-bag ban is designed to help the environment, and is OK with it, so long as stores provide another eco-friendlier option like paper bags for customers. Still, she doesn’t like the idea of paying extra for those paper bags, especially since they’re prone to rip. She also doesn’t like the idea of carrying liquids in paper bags. She said if business started charging for paper bags, she might take her business online, which she recognizes could hurt local retailers.

“If I have to pay for a bag that might break or tear it might reduce some of my shopping,” Miah said. “A lot of the stores we’ve heard have been losing business because of the online shopping model, but this is going to push people to do more online shopping because you get your box and it comes to your house.”

But Londoner Lucy Woodbridge, a 26-year-old marketing tech employee in Cleveland for a business trip, said it’s just about changing your habits. England in 2015 implemented a 5 pence charge for a single-use bag for large shops. That’s the equivalent of pennies in the United States.

She said the fee has motivated people to use reusable bags.

“I think it’s just now a bit more common practice and habit now which is fantastic,” Woodbridge said, who said she is enjoying her first trip to the Cleveland area and moving to Boston soon.

Sandy and Louise McGinnes, 77-year-old retirees in town visiting their son and his family in Pepper Pike, hail from Wellesley, Massachusetts, just outside Boston. Their town implemented a plastic bag ban in 2017. The couple said the ban hasn’t affected their lives in the slightest. It’s pretty simple, Louise McGinnes said.

“If you’re going shopping, you bring your own bags,” she said. She worried aloud, about how plastic is killing loons, a bird common in New England.

“Environmentally incorrect,” she added.

The ban also received approval from locals.

Joann Wirtz, a-60-year-old retiree who went to the mall for a gift exchange with longtime girlfriends, said she is getting used to the bag ban. The Painesville resident said she tries to make a habit of carrying reusable bags.

“When I don’t have my bags, if the purchase is small enough that I can throw it in my purse I’ll leave without a bag, because I just don’t have a need for plastic bags at home,” she said.

Of the plastic bag ban, she said: “Every little bit helps,” though admits she’s more worried about plastic bottles.

Sarah King, a 29-year-old stay-at-home mother of two from Mayfield Heights, out Christmas shopping with her husband, a pastor, said she thinks the plastic ban is a great step for the county. She said people annoyed by the bag ban need to think of the affect plastics have on our future.

“I think we need to think beyond our immediate convenience that’s what’s gotten us into this environmental crisis that we’re currently in,” she said. “The inconvenience that we feel is nothing compared to what generations ahead of us will feel.”

Read more here:

Cuyahoga County Council passes plastic bag ban

Cleveland City Council spars over timeline of plastic bag ban

Cleveland plan to opt out of Cuyahoga County plastic bag ban, study alternatives, gets OK from Mayor Frank Jackson

Gov. Mike DeWine favors letting Ohio cities ban plastic bags