Should Plastic Bags Be Banned in Austin?

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Articles of Interest
The following articles are provided as PDF downloads.
Coffee Industry Responsible for Significant Plastic Litter

How many people today grab a takeaway coffee cup from the local cafe to drink on the go? We don’t know, but the number must be enormous.. Most every one of the above have a plastic top that will last 100s of years. Some cafes still use plastic cups that last a similar time. Is 10 minutes of coffee worth 100s of years of trash? These items can be seen littering our gutters and on our streets all over the place. If they were all cardboard, they would still be littered, but they would, at least, be gone in a short time. They do not need to be made of plastic. Read More...
How Much Is Enough?

On the way home from the gym last week, a distance of about 1 km (1/2 mile), I counted the items of plastic litter on the curb as I walked. In that short distance I counted 63 pieces of plastic litter. Plastic drink bottles, bottle tops, candy wrappers, plastic film, polystyrene fragments etc. That seemed to be a lot to me. I guess it is a generational thing. Our parents would have been horrified to see that amount, whereas it seems to go unnoticed by our youth of today. In another 20 years how many pieces will there be on this stretch, -- 200? What will today’s youth think of that new amount then when they are older? Will their children be so readily accepting of a higher amount of litter?

Should Plastic Bags Be Banned in Austin?

Posted on February 10, 2012 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting Regulations

This would be great for Austin Texas to either ban the bag or charge a fee for them. Charging a fee will drop the bag usage substantially in a few months so the end result is about the same. Plus amid a lot of hype about the problems and confusion the manufacturers would have us believe will occur, after a couple of months most consumers would be happy the change was introduced. This is what happened in Italy with over 80% of people saying they were glad the bags had been banned after a year. People quickly adopt to new practices of using reusable bags and get on with their life. If they are not pressed however they would continue to do the same old thing which is using a lot of unnecessary plastic bags. Inspite of what the article says, there is quite a lot of factual results available as to what happens after plastic bags are banned.

Should Plastic Bags Be Banned? – NYTimes.com.

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DrRossH

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Dr Ross Headifen is an active promotor of the issues of plastic waste and what it is doing to our environment. He looks at issues concerning the proliferation of plastic waste and methods to control/reduce it. Including Reduce, Replace, Recycle and a new 4th R for Rejuvenation using landfill biodegradable additives to make plastics fade away.

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