SANTA CRUZ — By Labor Day, those triple-mocha lattes to go will come with a little something extra on the side: a 25-cent surcharge.
The Santa Cruz City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to update its existing food-packaging ordinance to further encourage environmentally sustainable business practices. The move puts the city in line with similar legislative updates made last year by the city of Watsonville and Santa Cruz County.
“Imposing a fee for disposable to-go cups is a necessary step in reducing the amount of debris that’s entering our landfills and our oceans,” Save Our Shores program manager Emily Pomeroy told the City Council before its vote. “Imposing this fee is a way of encouraging city residents and visiting tourists to integrate environmentally responsible habits into their routine, habits which will spill over into the lives of their social networks, both within and beyond the City of Santa Cruz.”
While Santa Cruz city’s new rules are effective 30 days after final approval, the city will not seek mandatory compliance from its food establishments — now including takeout food delivery businesses — until after the Labor Day holiday. Watsonville’s 10-cent charge on paper cups was effective Jan. 1 and Santa Cruz County’s 25-cent charge will begin July 1.
Public input
Santa Cruz Food Not Bombs leader Keith McHenry encouraged the city to set up more places for public composting, while a California Restaurant Association representative said that the type of product surcharges the council was considering weigh heaviest on the city’s low-income residents. Java Junction owner Michael Spadafora said that while he has been encouraging customers to bring their own drink cups to his cafes for 25 years, new city surcharges are forcing product costs to continue escalating.
“The lowest-denomination people here in town usually don’t have a recyclable cup,” Spadafora said. “You’re passing these recyclable charges on to people, which I don’t mind doing again. Just like I said last time, everything just keeps going up. But right now, a smoothie has about 80 cents in packaging built into the cost of the product.”
Enforcement of Santa Cruz’s cup charge is being delayed to the end of the summer at the request of Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk parent Santa Cruz Seaside Co., according to city officials. Though the company was not opposed to the city changes, said Councilwoman Cynthia Mathews, “they did express frustration that they were not fully engaged in the discussion leading up to this.” The Boardwalk is a “major provider of this disposable food ware” and is hoping to use up their summer supply stock, said city Waste Reduction Manager Leslie O’Malley, who is overseeing the effort.
Eco-friendly history
“Anyone who knows me knows I pick up these damn cups and lids and straws all the time. I mean, they’re a scourge upon the earth,” Mathews said, making a motion to update the city ordinance. “I think it is remarkable that the local businesses aren’t opposing it — they’re making some kind of practical application comments. But obtaining public sentiment in the world is rare.”
Similar to the Santa Cruz’s existing plastic bag ban ordinance, the to-go cup fee cannot be waived or included in the products’ price and must be charged as a separate fee that is identified on sales receipts. The law update also includes changes to which to-go compostable materials are permitted, now excluding polylactic acid-based disposables and fiber-based disposables coated with polyfluorinated alkyl chemicals.
Santa Cruz’s efforts to force private industry offering carry-out food and drink containers to become more environmentally sustainable dates to 1992, with a voluntary directive to avoid disposable polystyrene materials. In 2008, the city law was updated with a formal ban on polystyrene food service containers, accompanied by a mandate that restaurants use biodegradable, compostable or recyclable to-go materials — except for plastic cutlery and drink tops. Then, in a precursor to the latest change, in 2017 city leaders updated the law to recommend food vendors charge customers the quarter fee for disposable items and a quarter credit for bringing their own containers, and to give customers their straws, cutlery, drink lids and to-go condiment packages — all compostable — only upon request of the customer.
AT A GLANCE
What: Updates to Environmentally Acceptable Food Packaging and Products Ordinance.
In effect: After Labor Day.
Cost: 25-cent fee on hot and cold drinks using disposable cups.
Applies: City of Santa Cruz.
