Three City College experts, two in food service and one in environmental science, agree that Santa Barbara can survive without single-use plastic bags.

The proposed ordinance in the city of Santa Barbara prevents stores from distributing single-use bags and closely resembles the law passed in Carpinteria in early March. The ordinance will be revisited by Santa Barbara City Council in two weeks.

Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, which includes members representing numerous plastic bag manufacturing companies, has sued The City of Carpinteria because of their arising health concerns regarding the ban of plastic bags in restaurants.

Restaurant owners are worried that hot liquids spilling or leaking from a paper bag could result in severe burns or property damage to the customer.

“The leaking issue is a legitimate issue regardless of what container or bag your talking about,” said Kendra Wise, the health and sanitation instructor in the School of Culinary Arts.

Wise is an environmental health specialist and worked as a health inspector for Santa Barbara County before beginning to teach the sanitation class at City College.

If this lawsuit fails, she says, restaurants will simply have to train staff to package food items differently to reduce the risk of spills, or change the containers they use to transport food.

Randy Bublitz, department chair in the School of Culinary Arts, says plastic is not a vital product in the kitchen.  If plastic bags were banned in one store, they should be banned in all stores, he added.

Other areas of California joining the ban include the city of San Francisco, Santa Cruz County and Los Angeles County.  In many cities, restaurants are exempt from the ban but grocery and retail stores cannot distribute plastic bags and are required to place a 10-cent fee on paper bags.  Some cities practice the same law in grocery and retail stores. Some choose to include restaurants also.

The concern that started the single-use bag ban in Carpinteria, as well as other cities in the state of California, was the fear for environmental safety.

“I think there are some good uses for plastic in certain aspects of the medical industry,” said Dr. Adam Green, Professor of Environmental Studies and Biology.  “But a plastic grocery bag doesn’t make sense.”

As well as teaching classes in Environmental Science, Green is the director of the Center for Sustainability at City College.

Regarding restaurants in Carpinteria, Green says he could bring a canvas bag to a restaurant, have his food wrapped up, and “would probably survive the ride home.”

“If we banned all plastic bags in Santa Barbara, even from restaurants, we won’t suddenly see whale populations rebounding or sea turtles recovering,” he said.  “But it’s at least taking one more stressor out of the environment.”