Activist wants Schaumburg to lead on reusable bags

Dennis Paige, an environmental activist who lives in Schaumburg, believes his hometown should be leading the way toward encouraging the use of reusable shopping bags and moving beyond the paper-versus-plastic debate.

Among his arguments is that Schaumburg would live up to its "Cool City" designation by the Sierra Club by taking on such a leadership role.

But despite being among the first in the state to enact their own indoor smoking ban, Schaumburg officials believe this to be an issue in which they're better served monitoring the progress of Chicago's plastic bag ban.

"I'm not saying that we don't think this plastic bag issue is an issue, but we didn't think we could pull it off," Schaumburg Trustee Marge Connelly said of a discussion the Health & Human Services Committee she serves on had last fall.

"Yes, you have to have a leader to get things started, but we think Chicago being the leader in the state of Illinois is going to have a way huger impact than it being us."

Though a plastic bag ban is what Paige asked for in the first place, he said his counterproposal was also denied. This was that the village charge a 10-cent fee for plastic and paper bags at stores to encourage the purchase of reusable shopping bags.

Paige said stores like Whole Foods Market, IKEA and Aldi are already strongly advocating the use of such reusable bags. All people need is that last push to do the right thing and buy them, he believes.

"I'm trying to disincentivize this habit," Paige said of the continued use of plastic and paper bags. "It's a terrible habit."

Whole Foods Market Public Relations Specialist Allison Phelps said her company stopped using plastic bags altogether in 2008. Stores now use only reusable bags and recyclable paper bags.

Paige thinks Connelly is wrong in saying that only Chicago could successfully do a plastic bag ban, as Evanston will begin one this August for stores larger than 10,000 square feet.

Connelly said that because Schaumburg's borders with other communities is so subtle in some places, having a village-specific regulation would create a competitive disadvantage for Schaumburg businesses and confusion for shoppers from out of town about which stores they need their own bags for.

Even the local smoking ban of last decade was deemed able to succeed only with five communities acting together, she said.

"I think what shocked us then was that the state moved as quickly as it did after we did it," Connelly said.

Though Chicago also borders other communities, it has a much larger center where the recently approved plastic bag ban can take root, she said.

Stores larger than 10,000 square feet must comply with the ban by this August, while restaurants and small, independent stores less than 10,000 square feet must comply by August 2016.

Family-owned stores and restaurants are exempt from the Chicago ordinance, Schaumburg officials said.

Martha Dooley, Schaumburg's landscape and sustainability planner, said taking a stand on plastic bags is not a requirement of the Sierra Club's "Cool Cities" designation.

"To me, they look more at all your sustainability programs rather than one," Dooley said.

She believes the Schaumburg policies that helped earn the distinction are those that focus on energy efficiency. While plastic bags certainly have a number of negative environmental impacts, paper bags have others - making one not so clearly a better alternative to the other, Dooley said.

Connelly believes Schaumburg should stand ready to accept new standards when they become more widely accepted, but Paige remains frustrated that the village isn't helping set those new standards.