Beaufort County banned plastic bags and containers. Here’s why

Beaufort County placed a tighter leash on plastic products used by local businesses.

County Council passed an ordinance 7 to 3 banning plastic bags and polystyrene containers on June 8. Businesses will have to replace them with recyclable and reusable bags and containers. Plastic straws and cutlery can still be provided to customers if requested.

Why the ban?

The ordinance sites environment and infrastructure concerns as the reason for the ban. Plastic products overburden landfills, damage stormwater infrastructure and harm wildlife, according to the ordinance.

Plastic bags and containers also damage recycling machinery when improperly disposed of in curbside recycling bins, according to the ordinance. They can clog stormwater infrastructure, causing flooding during major rainfall events.

The county banned single-use plastic bags in 2018, but found the effects of reusable plastic bags too similar to single-use ones. According to the ordinance, plastic bags marketed as reusable are often thicker than single-use bags. Council seeks to phase-out plastic products in favor of compostable and recyclable ones through the ordinance.

The problem with plastics

Oceana Senior Field Representative for the Carolinas, Michelle Bivins, said plastics products are affecting human and ecological life. Oceana is an international ocean conservation advocacy group.

“Marine animals, many of which are endangered, are consuming or becoming entangled in the plastic flooding our waters, and that is posing a risk to our oceans,” she said.

A 2020 study by Oceana — “Choked, Strangled, Drowned” — found that in 1,800 reported cases of ocean animals affected by plastics in U.S. waters, 88% were species listed as threatened and endangered. 861 were sea turtles. When animals swallow plastics, it can, “impair their feedings, suppress reproductive hormones (and) increase susceptibility to disease,” Bivins said.

Plastics contain 16,000 chemicals, a quarter of which are known hazards to human health, she said. Some 33,000 pounds of plastic enter the world’s oceans each year. That’s equivalent to two garbage trucks worth of plastic entering the ocean every minute, she said. Polystyrene, a plastic used to make takeout containers, is made mainly of styrene, a chemical toxic to humans.

Plastics can break down into microplastics, small particles less than the size of a pencil eraser, she said. Microplastics can enter the human body and harm health.

“People consume, on average, hundreds of thousands of microplastics particles per year,” Bivins said.

Government policies, such as the ordinance implemented by council, are necessary to reduce the prevalence of plastic products, Bivins said.

For more information on how to recycle in Beaufort County, visit the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services website.