Water Cooler: Should Sonoma Join County Ban on Plastic Bags?

Sonoma City Council tentatively gave the heads up last night to join onto a county-wide effort to ban distribution of plastic bags, and charge for use of paper bags.

Spearheaded by the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency, proposed ordinance would join together un-incorporated areas in Sonoma County, with county municipalities to pass the ban.

Read more about the bill here.

Other county cities are following suit: Petaluma's City Council showed support for the ban last week with Winsor City Council shortly after. Last night, Healdsburg City Council became the sixth Sonoma County city to  to the county-wide ban.

The lone hold-out: .  At issue in Rohnert Park was the proposal's hefty price-tag and drawn-out process associated with the project. 

According to an agency report, the ban would cost between $135,440 to $193,240 for a CEQA analysis, legal costs and drafting the ordinance, and an additional $137,000 annually to enforce the ban.

In Manhattan Beach, legislation banning plastic bags went all the way to the California Supreme Court, after a lawsuit claimed the law was unconstitutional.

The Sonoma County ban aims to bypass any legal ramifications by taxing paper bags, so as not to provide an unfair advantage to a single retail product, and presenting a united county front, rather than an individual municipality.

All cities countywide must be on board with the ban in order to move forward.

What do you think? Should Sonoma comply with the waste management agency's recommendation to forbid the use of plastic bags? Should it be up to the government to decide, or do you think it should be a personal choice?

Editor's Note: We submitted your comments from last week's to Sonoma's traffic and safety departments. (Check back later this week for answers.) We'll make sure to pass along any comments left here to the appropriate authorities.