A Baltimore City Council committee just voted to amend a proposed ban on plastics bags by reducing the threshold for banned bags to 2.25 mils from 4 mils.
Representatives of retailers and grocery chains in the city told the City Council that bags that are 2.25 mils thick are reusable, which is why the “industry standard” for plastic bag bans nationally is a 2.25 mils threshold, The Baltimore Sun reports. Environmentalists, however, claim such bags are “barely distinguishable from the thinner grocery bags that can be found strewn throughout the community, and often enter the waste stream after a single use,” the report notes.
