Starting next month, you’ll have to pay 10 cents per bag at Edwardsville stores
A grassroots environmental organization in Edwardsville spent more than a year drumming up public support for a city ordinance requiring stores to charge 10 cents for single-use shopping bags.
The City Council unanimously approved the ordinance on Oct. 15, 2019. The fee was set to go in effect on April 1, 2020.
Then COVID-19 hit.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration promptly banned reusable bags — which the single-use bag fee was designed to encourage — to stop the potential spread of germs.
Fifteen months later, Edwardsville officials have announced that the fee will go into effect on July 12.
“Everybody is very happy and excited and relieved,” said Mary Grose, a founding member of Bring Your Own Glen-Ed, the organization that proposed the idea in 2018. “We have some finality. It’s done. It’s going to happen.”
Grose and other supporters argue that single-use bags, also known as “disposable” bags, pollute land and water, waste resources and harm wildlife and human health.
30 days to prepare
City Administrator Kevin Head announced the new implementation date for the single-use bag fee in a notice on Edwardsville’s website. He explained that officials are giving businesses 30 days from June 11 to prepare. That’s when the governor lifted most statewide coronavirus restrictions.
The ordinance applies to stores that cover 7,000 or more square feet. This includes Target, Schnucks, Kohl’s and 24 other retailers.
The stores will be required to charge 10 cents for each single-use shopping bag, paper or plastic, and post signs explaining why. They can keep the money for administrative and record-keeping costs.
Smaller retailers, restaurants, pharmacists and other specified vendors are exempt.
“It’s not a tax,” said Desiree Gerber, executive assistant to Head and Art Risavy, Edwardsville’s new mayor. “It’s a fee. The establishments can do what they would like with the money. Some of them plan to donate it back to the community in some way.”
The city has created a new logo for signs and other materials with an image of a shopping bag and the words “Don’t Forget, Grab Your Bags.” It serves as a reminder that residents can avoid the fee by bringing their own reusable bags to stores.
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First downstate city
Bring Your Own Glen-Ed proposed single-use bag fees for both Edwardsville and Glen Carbon in 2018. Members started doing research, attending public meetings, making presentations, lobbying officials and circulating petitions.
They hit a snag when Glen Carbon officials determined that they couldn’t legally pass a fee ordinance because the village doesn’t have home-rule status.
Edwardsville City Council passed its own ordinance, joining the Illinois cities of Chicago, Oak Park, Evanston and Woodstock in approving taxes, fees or bans on single-use bags.
Legislation to reduce the number of bags statewide failed in the Illinois General Assembly in 2019. Opponents objected to the extra cost for consumers and maintained that single-use bags are safer and more convenient.
Edwardsville/Glen Carbon Chamber of Commerce opposed Edwardsville’s ordinance, arguing for a “voluntary participation program” to reduce the number of bags. Some retailers worried that a fee could hurt business.
After COVID-19 hit, Bring Your Own Glen-Ed members understood the public’s concern about the spreading of germs, so they didn’t object to the temporary ban on reusable bags and tried to wait patiently for the single-use bag fee to be implemented, according to Grose.
“Once it was clear, fairly early, that COVID’s not transmitted through objects and it’s person-to-person respiratory transmission ... We felt like, ‘OK, it will happen eventually,’” she said.
On June 10, the city of Edwardsville sent notices about the new implementation date for the bag fee to all retailers that will be impacted. Signs, instructions and other materials are available on its website.
Here’s a list of all stores in Edwardsville required to charge the fee:
Target, Schnucks, Dierbergs, Kohl’s, Old Navy, CVS Pharmacy, The Home Depot, Kloss Furniture, T.J. Maxx, Books-A-Million, Ashley HomeStore, HomeGoods, Market Basket, R.P. Lumber, Michaels, Friar Tuck Beverage, First to the Finish, Walgreens, Petco, The Cyclery, Dollar Tree, The Doll Corner, Gliks, Dobbs Tire & Auto Center (two locations), O’Reilly Auto Parts and Bagley Farms Meat Market (in its new location).
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This story was originally published June 17, 2021 at 9:18 AM.
