Dear Somerset County Recycling & Solid Waste Management Department,

John Kendzulak and Melissa Harvey,

Thank you for taking your time to read this letter. As your department is responsible for
instigating waste disposal methods and designing and implementing special recycling programs
throughout the county, I propose implementing a Plastic Bag Ban and a ten-cent fee in Somerset
County. Many counties and cities in California have bag bans in place, and this year the state of
California is fighting to apply the ban state-wide. Specifically, the plastic bag ban is a ban on free
and single-use plastic bags at supermarkets, restaurants and retail stores. Bags can be purchased,
however, for a fee of ten cents, which makes plastic bags less easily available to consumers and
consequently will motivate them to use their own reusable bags for grocery shopping, or to not
use a bag at all when one is not needed. Not only is this program feasible, but it benefits the
economy, the visual appeal of communities, the health of the environment, and the health of
humans.
Plastic is a part of our everyday lives. We carry our groceries in it, it packages all of our
food, we drink water out of it and it helps our food stay fresh for a longer amount of time!
Unfortunately, plastic also takes from five hundred to one thousand years to biodegrade. It is
estimated that worldwide, up to one trillion plastic bags are used annually and approximately
eight million metric tons of plastic waste end up in the worlds oceans each year (Schwartz, NY
Times). Environmental engineering professor Jenna Jambeck says that this is the equivalent to
five plastic grocery bags filled with plastic for every foot of coastline in the world. Because
single use plastic bags are lightweight, the wind often blows them out of trash cans, garbage
trucks and landfills, and the bags eventually reach water sources like rivers, streams and oceans.
The bags then pollute fresh water, or are consumed by fish, turtles and whales in the ocean,
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which disrupts the food chain. Bags that are not properly disposed of end up disrupting the
digestion of Indian cows, scuttling along the ocean floor, and suffocating an estimate of onehundred thousand birds, whales, seals and turtles each year, (CS Monitor). In a county not very
far from the Atlantic Ocean, it is important to consider how plastic bags have and will continue
to impact marine wildlife, our precious Jersey Shore, and the beautiful state parks and
recreation areas that thrive in our county.
When plastic bags reach water sources, they do not decompose. Instead, they break apart
into tiny bits of plastic that become coated with toxins like polychlorinated biphenyls, known as
PCBs (NY Times). PCBs were actually banned in the United States in 1979 because of their
impact on human and environmental health, but unfortunately, they still exist today and end up
not only contaminating marine wildlife, but the seafood we eat (NOAA). Fish, turtles and whales
mistake the plastic debris coated in PCBs for food, and end up consuming them. Because of the
marine food chain, the animals that eat the plastic are consumed by larger marine animals, and
then those marine animals are consumed by even larger marine animals, which are eventually
consumed by humans. This means that these toxins end up in the bodies of humans, which is
unhealthy for our species.
Chelsea Rochman and co-authors conducted a study regarding anthropogenic debris
environmental pollutants originating in human activity, like plastic in seafood that is consumed
by the human population. The researches bought fresh oysters, anchovies, salmon, striped bass
and other commonly consumed fish from fishermen in both Indonesia and California who sold
their seafood for human consumption. The researchers then examined the digestive tract of each
individual fish, and what they found was shocking. From the fish purchased in California,
anthropogenic debris was found in 25% of individual fish and 55% of all species (Rochman).
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Anthropogenic debris has horrible effects on fish such as cellular necrosis (the death of some or
all cells in an organ or tissue), tumors and indigestion. What is especially worrisome about this is
that one-quarter of the fish that humans consume actually contain this hazardous debris. No
research has been conducted to discover if there is direct causation between anthropogenic debris
and health risks for humans, but anthropogenic marine debris may cause physical harm to
humans when debris is ingested via seafood, and if hazardous chemicals transfer to animals
through the process of indigestion, it has the potential to increase the likelihood of hazardous
chemicals in humans that consume the sick marine animal (Rochman). The cyclical process of
plastic bag pollution has significant potential to harm the health of humans, and this should not
be ignored.
In terms of economics, single use plastic bag pollution costs large sums of money to
clean up. Last year alone, United States taxpayers spent nearly eleven billion dollars cleaning up
litter across the United States, which is ten times more than it costs for trash disposal (NCDPS).
San Jose, in California, estimated an annual loss of one million dollars due to plastic bag related
repairs in their recyclables stream. Because single-use bags are lightweight and small, they easily
jam up recycling machinery which requires pricy repairs (CAW Recycles). Not only that, but the
city of San Diego in California spent approximately $160,000 taxpayer dollars annually cleaning
up plastic bag litter (Energy Center Org). In 2015, Somerset County removed 36,650 pounds of
litter from county roads. This was funded by an $81,607.51 grant from New Jersey Clean
Communities program, proving that roadside cleanup and litter management is not free
(Somerset County, Talking Trash). It is also important to consider that communities spend so
much time and money cleaning up trash because a clean community is perceived as a safe place
to live, where citizens care about the place that they work and raise children. It is clear that
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having clean communities is extremely important, but it is possible to have a clean place to live
without spending so much money on litter cleanup. Plastic bag bans open up opportunities to
direct the money and taxpayer dollars that would have originally been used for litter clean-up
towards something else.
Communities in California and their surrounding natural environment sustained many
positive benefits after implementations of plastic bag bans. For example, only one year after
plastic bag bans were implemented in San Jose, storm drain systems became 89% cleaner, streets
became 59% cleaner and creeks became 71% cleaner (Squarespace). One year after the plastic
bag ban was implemented in San Francisco, beach cleanups showed that the average number of
plastic bag collected per cleanup event declined from 65 per cleanup in 2009 to just 6 bags per
cleanup in 2013 (Squarespace). These statistics show a significant decrease in litter and plastic
bags, and a significant increase in cleanliness on beaches, creeks and streets. Our county takes
pride in its beautiful natural areas and parks such as Natirar, Leonard Buck Garden, the Great
Swamp, Little Brook Sanctuary and Washington Valley, and both time and money can be saved
by reducing the amount of litter that pollutes creeks and rivers in the first place!
In terms of energy and waste, before and after studies have indicated that in California,
bag bans decreased energy usage by 74,000 joules and reduced solid waste by 595,248 pounds
(Energy Center). It also reduced CO2 emissions by 6,418 tons, which is comparable to the
annual energy use from 589 homes or 1,186 passenger vehicles (AASHE). Even though the
numbers are small, they are externalities that can be reduced.
This policy has benefits not only for the environment, but for the economy. In
communities and cities that have already implemented the plastic bag ban and fee, there was only
a short-term increase in baggage cost for retailers due to the switch from plastic to paper bags,
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since paper bags are more expensive. However, this has statistically lowered over time, and cities
like San Jose and San Francisco have reported that the ban had no sustained negative impact to
retailers (Energy Center). It was estimated that after implementing the ban, it would cost
households an estimate of $7.70 to purchase reusable bags, whilst accounting for the ten-cent
fee. More importantly, this policy will not negatively impact the economically disadvantaged. In
local Californian cities that have implemented the plastic bag ban, they have also established
exemptions or subsidies for low-income program participants. This can easily be implemented in
Somerset County, especially because there are not a drastic number of low-income households.
Cities of San Jose, Santa Monica and Los Angeles County provided compounded
statistics from before and after the plastic bag bans. Before the bans, 75% of plastic bags used at
stores were single use plastic bags, 17% of citizens didnt use a bag, 5% used reusable bags and
3% used paper bags. After the bag ban was implemented, 45% of citizens used reusable bags,
39% didnt use a bag and 16% used paper bags (Squarespace). This research shows that the
plastic bag ban increased reusable bag usage by 40%, and caused 22% more people to not use a
bag if they didnt need one.
These policies can be easily enacted by local governments like Somerset county.
Communities can vote to enact this policy, but it is also important to educate citizens on the true
effects of plastic bag pollution and its impacts on the community. The cooperation of stores like
Shoprite, Wegmans, Stop and Shop, Rite Aid and CVS is a helpful way to promote reusable bag
use in communities. Shoprite already does a lot of this by offering ten cent discounts for every
reusable bag used at check-out, selling a variety of reusable shopping bags and having plastic
bag recycling bins at the front of each store. In San Francisco, the San Francisco Department of
the Environment visited shops door-to-door to educate store employees, provide lists of vendors
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who sell environmentally friendly bags and to answer questions about the bag ban. This could
easily be done in Somerset County, and would get business owners to be open and complicit with
the ban.
Additionally, with the slight profits that stores would make from the ten-cent fee,
awareness programs could be held where information is given, questions are answered, and
reusable bags are distributed. Before their bag ban was implemented in 2012, San Francisco
distributed 17,500 reusable bags to the community (Save SF Bay). This would be a great strategy
to positively encourage communities to participate in the program and help the county make the
transition to reusable bags. By advocating for environmental care and educating the county on
the positive effects the plastic bag ban has had on other places that have implemented it, it will
become feasible for local governments to implement these policies. Additionally, information
and awareness regarding plastic bag pollution and the positive outcomes of the ban can be
circulated by publishing informative articles in online newspapers such as Patch, and in the
Bernards Times. Advocacy websites would be key to providing descriptive information to the
community, and public talks and deliberations in town halls would also be ways to get opinions
and information out there, and reusable bags could also be distributed at these events! Even
though Somerset county votes Republican, with a positive outlook and sustainable attitude as
well as an opportunity to hold precedent for sustainability to all other counties in New Jersey, I
feel that citizens would accept the plastic bag bans.
John Muir said that when we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the
rest of the world. In Muirs eloquent writing, the reader finds beauty in the connectedness of
nature. In truth, however, it is a lot less pretty. The air is dirty, fish are sick, water sources are
polluted and we just cant seem to stop the destruction. Therefore, it is vital that we are activists
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for the environment in any and every possible way. It is true that one step can go a long way
one step sets precedent and really can make a difference. Plastic bag bans have been
implemented throughout California, so it is feasible to implement them here. If we continue to
ignore the truth of climate change, we will experience difficulties that our species might not
survive. Not only are sea levels rising, but climate scientists believe that if we continue to do
nothing we will experience significant drought and resource depletion. We will experience
conflict wars over food and water, and some parts of the planet will no longer be livable
therefore populations will have to move. Species and habitats will continue to become extinct
and destroyed. The air we breathe will give us cancer, and we will no longer be able to enjoy the
rich natural luxuries that the world has provided us for so long. If we do not learn to live
sustainably in harmony with our planet, we will all suffer. As extreme as this all is, little changes
can go far. Plastic negatively impacts our streets, parks, seafood, water sources and marine
animals, and data from cities that have implemented plastic bag bans prove that the ban does
work and does produce positive change. Please consider this seriously.
Thank you for taking your time to read this.
Best,
Samantha Post

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Schwartz, John. "Study Finds Rising Levels of Plastics in Oceans." The New York Times. The
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