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Monday, October 13, 2008 , Updated 8:44 a.m., October 14, 2008
UPDATED: Dallas City Council to consider plastic bag ban
The council's transportation and environment committee will considering recommending such a ban today.
It's time to get rid of plastic bags, once and for all.
In a first but significant step, the Dallas City Council's transportation and environment committee will consider recommending a ban on single-use plastic bags (i.e. grocery bags). If approved by the council, the ban would call for a three-to-five-year phaseout of the bags, with a program for recycling bags and encouraging purchases of reusable canvas bags being a stopgap solution.
UPDATE: Sending a clear message that they will not be supporting either fees or an actual ban, city council members declared in their Monday (Oct. 13) meeting that they would instead encourage the market to recycle plastic bags and urge residents to purchase reusable bags.
(Because encouraging and urging and appealing to folks' better natures historically works so well amongst the general populace.)
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snowboard9, anonymous:
Good idea and glad to see Dallas finally closing the gap behind other large American cities in eco friendly and smoke free environments.
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pabloindallas, anonymous:
Send the city council on a canoe trip down White Rock Creek below, say, I-30. They'll get the message.
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Jason Rice, verified:
Pablo - the thought of sending them down the river is good. Real good.;o)
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Pavel Lishin, verified:
Great, soon I won't even be able to bring my cigarettes to a bar in a plastic bag, and wrap myself in my asbestos blanket to keep warm and safe from immolation!
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Lisa Lawrence Merritt, verified:
I have always used my left over plastic grocery bags for garbage bags. I have never seen the point in buying small garbage bags because I could recycle the bags I had.
Now what?
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Teresa Gubbins, staff:
good for you for recycling, lisa lawrence merritt; not everyone does that
you can try to buy the thinnest-gauge trash bags possible -- i think the lowest is 0.4 mil
you can find the thickness on the package. there's a series of measurements such as "2 FT X 2 FT.6 IN X 0.4 MIL". that last measurement -- "0.4 MIL" -- is the number that indicates thickness.
environmentally speaking, the lower that number is, the better. (regular grocery bags are usually 0.3 to 0.4 mil thick.) companies like Hefty tout the fact that their bags are thicker gauge, but that's not much for the environment. 0.4 mil can be hard to find but 0.6 mil is generally available. it's easier to find the thinner gauge when you buy an off brand.
it's also better to buy your trash bags on a roll rather than in a box. aside from the fact that the box is yet-another package you don't want, buying trash bags on a roll is cheaper
and then of course, you want to start bringing canvas bags to the supermarket to carry your groceries
my friend uses leftover grocery bags to pick up dog poop. she's not too thrilled with my suggestion to wrap it up in newspaper
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Lisa Lawrence Merritt, verified:
And once we conquer the plastic bag issue can we move on to stopping disposable bottled water.
I have always thought that selling water in plastic bottles like sodas is the most asinine thing. People should refill their plastic bottles instead of this "one time use" thang.
And,btw, why can't we go back to glass bottles for sodas? I thought DP always tasted better in glass anyway...
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Scott Doyle, verified:
My apartment complex recently got a recycling bin, but for whatever reason glass (which I thought had the simplest recycling process) isn't allowed. Now our trash can just consists of food debris and beer bottles.
Anyways, methinks they should up the tax on plastic bags during the phase-out and provide every resident with a couple of canvas bags. Just a thought.
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Christin Richard, verified:
I use mine as packaging insulation for packages at the post office and UPS. Who needs wadded paper or Styrofoam peanuts when they can have a free petroleum derivative that they lobbied so hard to make the accepted standard for consumer good transport?
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alexander troup, verified:
A very good story and I have some evidence on this event, out by Cedar Creek, after floods and high rains, these plastic bags do flush out and get caught on trees and branches and they hang around for years, and months....... they are nasty and a bad thing to throw in the enviroment, go to the ocean and look into the bottom of the sea at 12 feet, they are all over, sinking and creating a Bio Hazard,kind of a Christo art peice underwater, only hazard...... until then.... Alexander Troup, H.A.Q
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Jason Rice, verified:
::encourage the market
Maybe send a nice note with chocolates or leave a voicemail "to whom it may concern"?
talk about a buzzkill
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alexander troup, verified:
I sure love those bags when i go camping and bottle hunting, will miss them when this and the plastic bottle act is passed, alex troup..H.2.O
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What do you think?