More Input Over Plastic Bag Output
The City of Austin will take public input on regulations concerning plastic shopping bags October 24. Photo by KUT NewsAudio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Just how should the city of Austin go about banning plastic checkout bags, and should it ban them at all?
Over the summer, the city council voted to develop a plan to at least reduce the flow of plastic shopping bags into landfills. The public is invited to weigh in next week on a potential ban.
In this week’s “Changing Austin” segment, KUT’s Matt Largey talks with Mayor Lee Leffingwell, who has supported a bag ban.
The city’s public-input meeting on plastic bags is Monday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Town Lake Center on Barton Springs Road.
You can hear the complete interview with Mayor Leffingwell by clicking on the audio player above.
Podcast: Download (4.4MB)
So, let me get this straight… Mayor Leffingwell says in one breath that he does not have “preordained preferences” about how to proceed, but he does not want to see “a tax or fee for bags”, he’d just rather see “taking them (plastic bags) out of circulation all together”. When asked about those who reuse them and are “attached to their plastic bags”, he says “we got along once without plastic bags at all… it can be done.”
More than 90 percent of consumers reuse their plastic grocery bags at home for purposes ranging from waste basket liners to lunch bags to pet clean-up.
And plastic bags are 100% recyclable… they can be made into dozens of useful new products such as low-maintenance fencing and decking, building and construction products, and shopping carts.
It seem the information is not accurate. The Liberal City Council is not having a public forum on Oct 24th, they have having a Stakeholders meeting to discuss the already pre-conceived ordinance. The public has no say in the matter. The ban will create a move to paper bags, and we will be right back where we were in 1980, cutting down trees, using more energy, and 7 times more waste going into landfills. Rather than embrace recycling, the city council has decided to drive the cost of public waste up rather than down. If the city is to save $800M as they claim, then how do they plan to pay for handling 7 times the volume of waste when paper takes the place of plastic? How are they going to explain the additional cost to the consumer when the big box stores start charging more to cover the cost of the increase in space, and cost, that paper will bring with it. (Store costs increased in San Fancisco even when they still carry compostable plastic bags, and the cost of little pick up increased two fold since the ban was put in place)? And finally, how is the
City council going to explain the jobs lost in Texas since most so-called reusable bags (85%) are purchased from off-shore, mainly China). Recycling the bags into viable products not only works but keeps Texas jobs. But as one representative of the Mayors Office put it…”I don’t care about Texas jobs”. Well the good thing here in South Austin, we can shop in Buda/Kyle where common sense still exists.