The King County elections division affirmed on Sept. 15 that a petition to repeal the Seattle City Council's proposed green fee on all disposable shopping bags has gathered enough signatures to put the proposal up for a city-wide vote.

After the fee was initially approved by the City Council and Mayor Greg Nickels, the Washington Food Industry filed a referendum and began circulating a petition at Seattle grocery stores in an effort to collect 14,374 signatures by August 28.

The group successfully turned in 22,292 signatures by the deadline, 15,099 of which could be verified, so that Seattle voters will have the opportunity to ratify or reject the proposal, likely in the primary on August 18, 2009.

Working under a tight deadline, the Washington Food Industry hired signature gatherers, spending $180,625 throughout the process.

Now, the Food Industry has shifted their efforts to focus on the voluntary program designed to encourage the use of reusable bags that they originally presented to the City Council as an alternative to the fee.

"Chose to Re-Use" is an incentive-based, educational program in which local business, government and the environmental community would promote the use of reusable shopping bags so that citizens are more likely to choose to use them and recycle their disposable shopping bags when they are a more sanitary option.

"We want to give people the opportunity to do the right thing," said Jan Gee, president of the Washington Food Industry. "We felt that with proper education and reminders the public would choose reusable bags."

Since they developed the program, Gee has received interest from city council members in both Spokane and Vancouver. She also has an appointment with Seattle council member Richard Conlin to discuss the program as an alternative to a per-bag fee.

Still, Conlin seems to believe that the original proposal would be most effective.

"We're really interested in anything positive that can be done," Conlin said. "You expect most people to do the right thing but you have to have something to catch those that don't."

When it goes to public vote, Conlin thinks that most people will be likely to support it, given the environmental benefits.

A second part of the proposed legislation, a ban of expanded polystyrene foam, better known as styrofoam, will still take affect in January and will be expanded to include plastic food service ware in July 2010.

Rose Egge can be reached at 932-0300 or rosee@robinsonnews.com.