Los Alamos board updates plastic‑bag study; working group recommends more research and community engagement

The Los Alamos County Environmental Sustainability Board on July 17 received an update from a working group that has been evaluating single‑use plastic bags, possible alternatives and local costs related to recycling and contamination.

Rebecca Paley Williams, a member of the working group, summarized prior local history and recent research. She said earlier county efforts (2015–2021) emphasized public education rather than ordinance changes after petition and survey results showed strong opposition at the time. The working group reviewed academic life‑cycle studies, New Mexico municipal ordinances and interviews with jurisdictions that adopted bag fees or bans.

Williams reported several findings: single‑use plastic bags last minutes in use but hundreds of years in the environment and tend to enter waterways and recycling equipment; municipal bag policies have produced a 25–47% reduction in bags appearing in litter cleanups in some coastal studies; and New Mexicans use an estimated 33,000,000 single‑use plastic bags annually. She also said life‑cycle analyses vary widely by material and methodology and that some reusable bags must be reused many times to match the greenhouse‑gas footprint of a thin single‑use bag.

Board member Sue Barnes presented a 2018 Danish Environmental Protection Agency lifecycle comparison and urged the board to be precise about which environmental metrics to optimize. Barnes said some studies show recycled‑plastic reusable bags perform better than paper or cotton when reuse rates are high, and that organic cotton can have higher impacts because of lower yields. “If we’re going to suggest a different bag, we should have an idea of what the best different thing is,” Barnes said.

The working group summarized interviews with New Mexico jurisdictions and local retailers. The group said Las Cruces and Santa Fe reported measurable declines in single‑use bag volumes after ordinances or fees; Las Cruces’s results developed over several years. Williams said Smith’s in White Rock tested a store‑level bag fee but that corporate management later ended the test; the working group did not obtain firm usage statistics from that trial.

Interviewed municipal staff recommended several design choices for an enforceable local program: clearly enforceable ordinance language and penalties for noncompliant businesses; broadly defined but documented uses for any fee revenue (for example, education, litter cleanup or recycling services); and sustained public education after a policy’s launch. The working group also reported a fiscal analysis prepared during a proposed New Mexico state bill (House Bill 392) that estimated statewide recycling savings for processors, and noted the state bill had not been enacted.

Board discussion focused on next steps and gaps in the working group’s research. Members identified several items for further work: obtain local estimates of single‑use bag volumes (the working group reported a Smith’s White Rock estimate of roughly 5 cases per week at 500 bags per case); confirm whether the county’s recycling processor charges contamination fees tied specifically to bags; analyze county hauling and landfill costs linked to bag disposal; and seek retailer input (in particular, Smith’s corporate policy) on local bag practices.

The board agreed the working group should continue research and return with an updated report in September 2025. Councilor Reedy, who asked the board to study bags, has indicated he would like a recommendation from ESB once research and public engagement are complete. No ordinance or fee was proposed or voted on at the July meeting.