Progressive Bag Alliance

This article is part of the Center for Media & Democracy's spotlight on front groups and corporate spin.

The Progressive Bag Alliance (now known as the Progressive Bag Affiliates, or PBA) was founded in 2005 and is a group of American plastic bag manufacturers who use legal threats and lobbying strategies to slow, stop or weaken ordinances banning plastic grocery bags. The group carries out these activities while advocating recycling plastic shopping bags as an alternative to banning the bags. In March 2008, the Progressive Bag Alliance's Web site started redirecting visitors to American Chemistry Council Web site, and in early 2008 PBA changed its name to "Progressive Bag Affiliates" and much of the information that used to be available on its former web site, like past newsletters that alerted supporters about municipalities considering bag bans, has disappeared.

Background

Recently, a growing number of municipalities, states and countries have been enacting legislation banning plastic bags as a way to cut plastic bag pollution in cities, landfills and waterways. The effort to reduce the use of plastic bags has even become chic, as reusable bags created by fashion designer Anya Hindmarch and emblazoned with the slogan, "I am not a plastic bag" have been selling out as fast as they are made.

While PBA does not offer a street address on its Web site, its previously-available newsletters bore the address "PBA c/o Edelman, 1500 Broadway, New York, NY 10036", indicating PBA is set up and operated by the Daniel J. Edelman, Inc., a large independent public relations firm. A January 2008 press release from Progressive Bag Affiliates contains a contact email for david.vermillion@edelman.com, indicating Edelman is still operating PBA despite the name change from "Progressive Bag Alliance" to to "Progressive Bag Affiliates."

The alliance's website domain name was registered on Feb 08, 2005 by Michael Crass from the Houston,Texas-based Superbag Corporation.

Strategies and tactics

The Progressive Bag Alliance uses a number of public relations strategies to head off plastic bag bans that were first employed by the Tobacco industry to head off smoking bans, specifically:

1) Shifting the focus of the discussion and making options for solutions appear limited: The PBA portrays laws banning plastic shopping bags as unreasonably limiting consumer choice. In its statements and press releases, it limits the scope of discussion of the problem to an issue of plastic versus paper bags, focusing paper bags as the only viable alternative to plastic bags, and saying paper uses more environmental resources to produce. PBA consistently avoids mentioning or raising discussion of the use of cloth, nylon or other types of non-disposable bags. PBA also works to shift the focus off of plastic bags and onto human behavior as the central problem, saying "While care for the environment is critical, solutions that consider consumer lifestyle and freedom of choice are essential to encourage long-lasting behavioral change."They do this while opposing measures, like deposits or bag taxes, that have a greater track record of alter behavior with regard to use of disposable bags.

2) Promoting weaker measures and delaying more effective legislation: The Progressive Bag Alliance backed a weak California recycling bill, AB 2449, passed in 2007, which required supermarkets, pharmacies and other major retail outlets of over 10,000 square feet and that have over $2 million or more in annual sales to provide bins where customers can recycle their plastic grocery bags. However, the law does not provide incentives for people to change their behavior regarding plastic bags; it does not mandate that consumers recycle their bags, nor does it require a deposit on bags or provide other incentive to consumers to recycle them.

PBA seems to advance such weak mandatory recycling proposals as a way to head off more stringent proposals. In July, 2007 the PBA worked to derail a proposal in Annapolis, Maryland to ban plastic shopping bags. After a strict ban on plastic bags was proposed for virtually all Annapolis retail outlets to help protect the area's waterways and marine life, the city's Mayor, Ellen Moyer, introduced a revised version of the measure that largely avoided the issue of plastic bag litter and instead suggested further studies be conducted by an environmental review committee into using recyclable and reusable products rather than imposing a ban.

3) Suing cities that ban plastic bags, as a way to slow the spread of such legislation: The Plastic Bag Alliance is also a member of the Coalition to Support Plastic Bag Recycling, a local front group that appeared in California shortly after cities in the San Francisco Bay area started passing ordinances banning plastic shopping bags. The Coalition brought a lawsuit against the small town of Fairfax, California, to stop its ban. The suit was effective in causing Fairfax to make ending use of plastic bags voluntary.

Member companies of PBA

• Advance Polybag (sales offices in Chicago, Columbus, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and New Orleans)
  
• Inteplast (Livingston, New Jersey)
  
• Superbag (Houston, Texas)
  

Allies/Affiliates

(Information taken from PBA's newsletters):

• American Chemistry Council (now appears to be operating PBA as "Progressive Bag Affiliates")
• The Society of Plastics Industry
• The Film and Bag Federation
• CFECA (unsure what the acronym stands for)
• The Food Marketing Institute
• Coalition to Support Plastic Bag Recycling

Board

On a version of its website from August 2007, the board members of the PBA were listed as:

• Isaac Bazbaz, Chairman
  
• Bill Seanor, Treasurer, PBA
• Leon Farahnik, Hilex Poly
• Joe Chen, Inteplast
  
• Hank Nguyen, Advance Polybag
  

Contact

Progressive Bag Alliance
Web site: http://www.progressivebagalliance.com/ (In March 2008 started redirecting to American Chemistry Council where the group appears to have changed its name to "Progressive Bag Affiliates"
Email: pba@americanchemistry.com.

Progressive Bag Alliance/Progressive Bag Affiliates
c/o Daniel J. Edelman, Inc. Public Relations
1500 Broadway
New York, NY 10036

Articles and Resources

• K. Huus, "Battle of the Bags: How the plastics industry uses lobbying and legal threats to turn plastic bag prohibitions into voluntary recycling drives", MSNBC.com-Newsweek, March 13, 2008
• Plastic bag bans gaining momentum around the world, Kazinform Information Agency (Kazakhstan), April 7, 2008. Progressive Bag Affiliates says banning and taxing plastic bags is "not the right approach."
• Stuart Glascock, Los Angeles Times Seattle may dump throwaway bags, April 14, 2008, National section (Progressive Bag Affiliates advocates recycling as the best alternative to a 20 cent per bag "green fee.")
• Christy, Bring Me Up The Environment (blog)Fee to use plastic bags April 13, 2008 (PBA opposes 25 cent-per-bag levy by saying fee would increase use of paper bags; omits discussion of other bag options)
• Mark Albright, St. Petersburg (FL) Times Paper bags or plastics? Best choice isn't clear April 11, 2008 (Progressive Bag Affiliates advocates voluntary measures)
• KNX 1070 Radio (Los Angeles) Payment for Plastic (Progressive Bag Affiliates limits discussion of issue to paper or plastic)

Related SourceWatch Articles

• Front groups

External resources

• Progressive Bag Alliance's past newsletters (July to November, 2007 only, available in PDF format)
• Associated Press China's new revolution: War on plastic bags MSNBC/World News, World Environment. January 9, 2008
• Cawthorne A., Reuters Africa wages war on scourge of plastic bags August 20, 2007