City officials discuss ban on plastic bags in Austin stores
In reading this article, I thought about how many hundreds of plastic bags I've seen on the side of the highway, floating through the air, maybe stuck to a fence, or up in the top of a tree hung on a branch. It has always bothered me to see these awful environmentally un-friendly plastic bags everywhere you look. The city of Austin is now wanting to implement a ban on these shopping bags because of their negative effect on our beautiful city. I completely agree, first of all, with trying to rid all places of using them. On the other hand, what are we going to use in place of them? Not everyone can afford to buy a ton of the multiple use green bags that have grown in popularity over the past several years, and paper bags are almost non-existent these days. It would be nice if someone could come up with something more environmentally friendly that didn't seem to trash our planet not just in Austin, but everywhere. Since these bags are not biodegradable, they aren't going to dissolve into the Earth like paper bags can. It seems the city officials have already tried to at least decrease the amount of these bags being used by promoting a voluntary program, but just like most "voluntary" programs they die out after a while if they're successful for any time period initially.
At one point in this article, a citizen of Austin states that if shoppers didn't have the option of using plastic bags then use of them would decrease. True, but like other people in all areas, I have a collection of these bags of my own to re-use for anything I might need a disposable bag for. To tell you the truth though, until this article I had never really thought about the fact that they'll be in the landfills or where ever they may land forever. When I have this thinking process in place, I would like to see this ban pushed through and people gladly following the rules and seeing what a difference it could make for our planet. I'm not a die-hard environmentalist generally, but a top pet peeve of mine is littering because it's just pure laziness.
Ultimately, I think this plastic bag ban may catch on for a period of time IF it is actually enforced, but unless they're "illegal" I don't believe they'll disappear for all eternity. They're just too convenient for a multitude of tasks!
City officials discuss ban on plastic bags in Austin stores
By: Syeda Hasan
Published: 7/25/11
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/
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