Falling Into Action

In this issue we are again addressing single-use shopping bags. Our guest author is Maurice Sampson, the Eastern Pennsylvania Director of Clean Water Action. He has been spearheading the passage of a bill addressing single-use bags which was reintroduced in City Council this month. Please read his article below for an in-depth explanation of the amendment and why it is needed. Another new bill has been introduced by Council member Jamie Gauthier called the Stop Trashing Our Air Act, which prohibits the City of Philadelphia from contracting with companies that incinerate the city’s solid waste or recyclables. We currently send 37% of Philly’s trash to be burned in Chester. Please call your council person if you would like the people of Chester and Philly to have cleaner air.

🖋️ From Our Guest Author:
Maurice Sampson, Eastern PA Director of Clean Water Action

BYOBag Fall 2025 Amendment
After six prior attempts, a ban on single-use plastic bags was finally passed by Philadelphia’s City Council in 2019. Credit for this was due to the tenacity of Councilmember Squilla in partnership with Clean Water Action, neighborhood advocates, and Philadelphia’s environmental organizations. We are the first city in the country that can credit the involvement of the black and brown community leadership for the success of the legislation.

This legislation is necessary to reduce the use of all carryout bags. Studies show that fees are a disincentive that encourage shoppers to bring their own bags. Although the plastic bag ban made significant strides in reducing plastic use, the use of paper bags tripled. While paper bags can be recycled, their production generates substantial pollution. Philadelphia’s major supermarkets stopped using plastic bags, but paper bags are two to three times more expensive than plastic, a cost many smaller stores are not willing to absorb. Over a thousand small stores serving Philadelphia’s low-income neighborhoods are still using plastic bags due to this added expense. Enforcing the plastic bag ban would force them to raise prices for poor residents. Requiring a fee on all take-out bags levels the playing field, removing the burden on small store owners who currently do not charge for bags. Customers who bring their own bags can avoid the proposed fee.

Many believe a fee on shopping bags will hurt low income families. In fact, the absence of a fee is a burden. Discount supermarkets Aldi, Lidi and Save-a-Lot have required customers to buy or provide their own shopping bags for nearly fifty years. A food shopping survey conducted in October 2023, reported that the prices at discount stores were up to 40% lower than the average price of goods across almost two dozen regional stores. Charging fees for shopping bags is one of the practices that allows these stores to reduce costs.

Since 2018, over three dozen laws banning one or more types of single-use plastic have passed in Pennsylvania. They cover over 2.6 million Pennsylvanians and could eliminate over 950 million single-use plastic bags every year. The BYOBag amendment will fix our current, imperfect ban and reduce even further the number of single-use plastic and paper bags given at checkout. 

🗳️ Politics and Legislation

Incineration — About 40% of Philadelphia’s waste is burned, with the largest amount going to the Reworld plant (previously named Covanta) in Chester, PA. It is the largest incineration plant in the U.S. and the largest source of industrial air pollution in the region. Burning trash results in significant quantities of ash that still must be disposed of, and pollutes the air with fine particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides, all of which are known to exacerbate respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Chester residents have been fighting for relief from this pollution for many years.

In June 2026, the city’s contract with Reworld expires. City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who chairs the Committee on the Environment, introduced the ‘Stop Trashing Our Air’ Act which would prohibit the city from future contracts with companies that incinerate waste.

City sues over packaging – Philadelphia has filed a lawsuit accusing two manufacturers of misleading consumers by marking their product packaging as recyclable. The two manufacturers are Bimbo Bakeries, maker of many familiar brands including Thomas, Entenmann’s, Arnold and Stroehmann, and SC Johnson, the producer of Ziploc bags. The thin film plastic bags are not recyclable in that there is no market for this kind of plastic, and the city specifically asks residents not to put them in recycling bins as they are the most common cause of equipment breakdowns, with flying bags clogging machinery.

📅 Events 📝

Click on the calendar icons below to add events to your Google calendar

📅 Nov 4th, 1 – 2:30 PM EST (Online) • Northeast Recycling Council (NERC) Webinar • Join one of our Philly Talks Trash producers for this webinar on refillable and reusable restaurant containers. Learn federal and state guidance, new FDA supplemental rules, and how states can adopt reuse practices.

📅 Nov 12th, 7 PM EST (Online) • Toxic Chemicals in Plastics Webinar • Join a free webinar on toxic chemicals found in toys, packaging, clothing, and household products. Learn their health and environmental impacts and how to protect yourself and your community.

🌐 Plastic-reduction Resources 🤝🏽

The problems we face with plastic proliferation are great, but an ever-growing group of organizations, laws, and policies are taking aim at the issue, and small businesses are looking to meet the need for products without plastics. The Philly Talks Trash Resource Page is an expanding collection of waste-reduction information, politics, articles, products, and organizations, all focused on reducing plastic use. If you have suggestions for the page please email us. We will highlight a few products and organizations in each newsletter and the link to the full and growing list will always be available at bit.ly/pttq.

Thank you to our sponsor, ECHO Systems

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