Longtime employer threatens to leave
BROWNSVILLE — The City Commission Tuesday, apparently prompted by alarm on the part of a longtime Brownsville employer, postponed a public hearing on amendments to the ordinance banning plastic bags because of confusion over language suggesting that paper bags also could be affected.
Duro Bag Manufacturing Company, which opened its Brownsville plant in 1969 and employs roughly 150 people, is threatening to leave the city if an ordinance banning paper bags is passed. City Commissioner Edward C. Camarillo, who has worked closely on the initiative, insisted that is not the intention of the revised ordinance.
“Nobody is trying to ban paper bags,” he said. “We are not banning paper bags.”
The City Commission in January passed the plastic bag ordinance, calling for a voluntary ban of plastic bags through December 2010. The ban becomes mandatory Jan. 5, 2011, when businesses can only provide recyclable paper bags, reusable bags or biodegradable bags.
Neither the voluntary nor the mandatory ban applies to plastic bags for bagging meat, fish and poultry products.
While the original ordinance specifies that as of Jan. 1, 2011, “businesses may instead provide only recyclable paper bags, reusable bags, or biodegradable bags as checkout bags to their customers,” an amendment proposed by the initiative’s Environmental Advisory Committee gets rid of language in the original ordinance specifically exempting “recyclable paper bags” from the ban.
The amended ordinance states that as of Jan. 5, 2011, business establishments may only provide “reusable” bags as checkout bags to their customers, a reusable bag being defined as made of cloth or other washable fabric or durable material suitable for reuse. The revised ordinance still excepts paper bags specifically provided by restaurants for food carryout,
pharmaceutical businesses, veterinarians and for carryout beverages.
The proposed amendments that were to go to public hearing Tuesday were the result of Environmental Advisory Committee recommendations for certain changes in the ordinance that would simplify the text. Instead, it seems to have done the opposite.
Chris Klein, the Kentucky-based Duro company’s environmental director, said the revised ordinance clearly seems aimed at banning most paper bags, notwithstanding Camarillo’s assurances to the contrary.
Company officials said the company would have no choice but to move if paper bags were banned.
