Irvine’s ban on single use plastics – like water bottles – won’t move forward after city council members ordered their staff to come back with a more modest proposal following complaints from local businesses about the proposal.
While state laws are already requiring companies to phase out single use plastics such as plastic utensils and styrofoam plates in the coming years, Irvine’s law would’ve dramatically sped up that timeline.
The law would have been a first for Orange County, banning all plastic bags and styrofoam products being sold in the city by 2025 and eliminating plastic water bottles and utensils by 2026.
Numerous environmentalists and nonprofits spoke out in favor of the proposed plastics ban, with many saying it didn’t go far enough to address the problem of plastic pollution.
“Every high tide a new wave of plastic pollution washes ashore,” said John Watsworth, co-chair of the north Orange County chapter of the Surfrider Foundation at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
“The shift in behavior from single use to reusable is the path to ensure a more sustainable future for generations to come,” Watsworth said.
The proposal faced strong pushback from business interest groups such as the California Restaurant Association and the OC Business Council, who called it an overreach that would hike costs on local businesses.
“The business community finds this approach to be too broad, burdensome, and too extreme,” said George Boutros, the business council’s government affairs manager, during the meeting.
Boutros called on the city to suspend any ban on single use plastics and instead encourage recycling.
Many business advocates also criticized the city for poor communication with the community, pointing out how city staff only received responses from 129 of Irvine’s 17,000 registered businesses in their survey and they released the proposed law the day before Thanksgiving.
Council members ultimately agreed with business leaders that the proposed ban was too much, voting 4-1, with Councilman Mike Carroll voting against it, to continue studying the issue and come back with a revised proposal that would include educating the community on the issue of plastics.
“We’re not giving any direction really,” said Councilman Larry Agran. “We’re directing staff to continue stakeholder and community outreach, cost impact analysis, and other measures as needed to refine the ordinance.”
Councilwoman Kathleen Treseder, an ecology professor at UC Irvine who’s been a strong proponent of the policy, also agreed to continue developing the final policy, and asked that staff keep the options of banning some single use plastics on the table for future talks.
“I’m not expecting we’d all agree on that after it comes back, but I’m hoping to be comprehensive,” Treseder said.
Council members also backed up concerns from business leaders about city staff failing to get enough input from the community.
“This is a real miss when it comes to communication and outreach,” said Councilwoman Tammy Kim, who also criticized the survey for only being available in English.
City Manager Oliver Chi apologized for the poor engagement, noting that the city council only gave them four months to create the ordinance, find a way to enforce it and talk to businesses.
“I personally think the sustainability staff’s outreach efforts given the time constraints placed on staff by the city council were commendable,” Chi said. “I completely agree we could’ve done better outreach with more time.”
Carroll, the sole vote against the proposal, said the regulation wasn’t needed, pointing to multiple state laws already requiring companies to phase out single-use plastics over the coming decade.
“I think you guys are trying to regulate thousands of residents who don’t want this regulation,” Carroll said. “And I think you’re doing it at your peril.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.
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