Austin has always felt just a little more green to me than most cities in Texas. With the exception of Lake Tahoe, California, Austin seems to take better care of our parks and wildlife than other urban developments I've encountered (the beautifully refreshing Barton Springs and the small but sweet Blunn Creek Reserve are just two testaments to this notion). Let's not forget the Single Stream Recycling system Austin put into place in 2008, an enviro-friendly luxury afforded to few US cities. Now, city officials are trying to plant a foot into the Green Frontier by ordering a city-wide ban of the much denounced (yet widely-used) plastic shopping bag.
Mayor Lee Leffingwell along with Bob Gedert, director of Solid Waste Services, on July 25th proposed a ban on plastic bags throughout the city of Austin. The motion is to be considered in this November's City Council legislation. Though it sounds rather drastic, we wouldn't be the first city to do so in Texas. Brownsville, the 3rd largest of Texas' border towns, enacted the ban earlier this year. If Brownsville (a city of 175,000) officials think plastic bag use is wasteful and excessive enough to ban them altogether, imagine how many millions of plastic bags Austin (a city of 1.7 million) consumers are pumping into our landfills. Apparently, too many! Leffingwell says that our estimated 263 million discarded plastic bags cost the city over $800,000 per year in pollution and disposal costs! Recent efforts by many plastic bag contributors (like HEB and Wal-Mart) to sway consumers over to paper and recycle their old plastic bags at storefront receptacles have proved almost fruitless. The number of plastic bags used annually just keeps growing along with our city, and now that it's costing damn near 1 million dollars to city tax payers, Leffingwell is ready to do something about it. The Plastic Bag Ban Report says he has until September 23rd this year to figure out how much it'll cost Austin tax payers to include plastic trash bags in the Single Stream Program, and report it to City Council .
I will be the first to admit, I use plastic bags. As I usually ride a bike to HEB, I'm even known to double bag (a practice that I do not feel too bad about, considering I reuse all of the plastic bags that I don't recycle as small trash can liners.) For this reason, I cannot agree with the term environmentalists have come up with: "single-use" bags. Out of occasional guilt, I have purchased maybe 10 of those reusable cloth bags that most chains sell for 99 cents at the register, but have probably only thought ahead enough times to pack them with me a handful of times. Oh I use 'em, but more often to carry food and frisbees to the park, not to bring home groceries. This is likely the problem across the state of Texas. It's not that we don't care about the costs and damages involved in using plastic bags; it's just that they are more versatile and more convenient. I mean, who lines a kitchen or bathroom trash can with a paper bag?
Being a natural born cynic, I think it's funny that the Mayor gets behind the cause when he has been alerted that it costs his taxpayers about 17 cents a bag. I mean, do you really think he sits up at night thinking about how he can save the environment? Is it just in an effort to get in the Green Party's good graces? Does he have plans to take Perry's office when he makes the move to President in 2012? What plans specifically does he have for the newly freed-up funds? I dunno. But honestly, though it would inconvenience me if Austin decides to go all paper at the stores, I stand behind the Mayor's proposal no matter what his initial motives. I'll just have to learn to adjust. I don't see the harm in reducing non-biodegradable filler in our landfills and freeing up taxpayer money for more tactful expenditures, that's for sure. Maybe he's just smart enough to take a hint from San Fransisco's plastic-free success. *The city of San Fran proper went from an estimated 180 million plastic bags used in 2005 to...well, fewer in 2007 when they became the first municipality in America to enact the plastic bag-free law.
With the state already in troubles with the EPA to get it's pollutin' in order, I think it's a measure we Texans can afford to explore. But can small local businesses afford the cost of goin' paper? Some people think it's too expensive, and even more harmful to produce recycled paper bags strong enough to hold mixed goods. Read here for a much different opinion on the issue than Leffingwell and I share. The Save the Bag Coalition website claims that "...(they've) discovered that paper bags were worse for the environment, especially regarding energy consumption and CO2 and methane emissions." If this information is true, and "Paper Bags are even worse for humanity than Plastic Bags!"...in all honestly, by then, I'm bored with the subject. I've just got too much going on to research bags all day. Let's call it a draw, and take the grassroots approach to cleaning up Texas' streams and coastlines. Take your reusable bags (you know, the ones you already own) to the store with you next time; save yourself a few wasteful tax dollars in the end.
Maybe the Single Stream Recycling Program, until the measure is passed, could just include "single-use" plastic bags on the list in the meantime. Perhaps, even if the law is passed in November, it'll be an effortless way to recollect the 200 Million (my personal estimate based on the 300 bags that I keep thoughout the house waiting to be used or recycled) plastic bags that Austinites hoard away in their kitchen cupboards and drawers. At least this way, while we prepare for Plastigeddon, the effort is minimal on our part, and booming Austin can remain the utopia of the south it prides itself on being.
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