{"id":9614,"date":"2025-10-21T02:43:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T02:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/9614\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T02:43:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T02:43:08","slug":"philadelphia-bag-fee-has-support-in-city-council-but-mayor-disagrees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/9614\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia bag fee has support in City Council but mayor disagrees"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk<\/a>, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.\n<\/p>\n

From the Poconos to the Jersey Shore to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, what do you want to know about climate change? What would you like us to cover? Get in touch<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

Philadelphia City Council is expected to pass a bill requiring all supermarkets, corner stores and shops in the city to charge customers 10 cents for each paper bag. The bill would strengthen the city\u2019s plastic bag ban<\/a>, which cut down on plastic bag use while causing paper bag use to soar<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not clear whether Mayor Cherelle Parker would sign it.\n <\/p>\n

A similar bill passed City Council in 2023 but died on outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney\u2019s desk<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what to know.\n<\/p>\n

What would the single-use bag fee bill do?<\/p>\n

Philadelphia\u2019s existing plastic bag ban went into effect in 2021<\/a>, banning single-use plastic bags and paper bags made of nonrecycled materials in grocery stores, corner stores and restaurants.\n<\/p>\n

A city-commissioned study<\/a> estimated that in the ban\u2019s first year, it prevented over 200 million plastic bags from being used in the city, a volume that could fill City Hall every eight months<\/a>. But the study also estimated that the ban nearly tripled the percentage of customers who used paper bags.\n<\/p>\n

While paper bags can be recycled or composted, they take more energy to produce than plastic bags<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

The bag fee bill, heard in a City Council committee Monday, would attempt to close this loophole and encourage shoppers to bring their own reusable bags by requiring establishments to charge customers 10 cents per paper bag. The fee would not apply to paper bags used for prepared food take-out, drive-through orders or deliveries.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to change behavior,\u201d Councilmember Mark Squilla, the bill\u2019s main sponsor, said during Monday\u2019s hearing. \u201cEven though it\u2019s only 10 cents, it\u2019s the mindset that, \u2018I\u2019m not giving them 10 cents for a bag. I\u2019m just going to bring my own bag.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The version of the bill Squilla introduced last month would have required a fee of 15 cents per bag. Squilla amended the bill to lower the required fee Monday.\n<\/p>\n

The bill would also clarify that the ban applies to thicker single-use plastic bags, while adding an exception for plastic bags that enclose utensils or condiments.\n<\/p>\n

Carlton Williams, director of Philadelphia\u2019s Office of Clean and Green Initiatives, said clarifying that the bag ban applies regardless of thickness would make it \u201ceasier to enforce.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,5648,71,70,7970,5206],"class_list":["post-9614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-city-council","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-plastic-bags","tag-whyy-news-climate-desk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}