Austin Mayor pushing to ban plastic bags at Austin stores

Austin retailers and grocery stores could no longer offer plastic bags at checkout counters under a ban Mayor Lee Leffingwell and two other City Council members will propose today.
- Austin American-Statesman

Austin isn't the first city to consider such legislation. In California, the ban started in San Francisco in select stores; if pending legislation goes through, it could soon expand to all stores not only in the city, but in the entire state. A similar ban exists in coastal Brownsville, TX as well as North Carolina and was recently passed in Portland, OR.

According to the article the Mayor says that the ban would be phased in gradually, but doesn't mention when it would start.

Leffingwell said he thinks paper bags should still be an option at checkout counters because they're included in Austin's curbside collection program for recyclables and they don't gum up recycling machinery as plastic bags do.

But he said retailers may want or need to charge a fee of a few cents per paper bag to compel customers to get in the habit of bringing canvas or reusable bags.
- Austin American-Statesman

Austin attempted to ban the bags in 2008 but stopped short after large retailers complained.

Austin city leaders, led by then-Council Member Leffingwell, nearly enacted a plastic bag ban in 2008 and then held off when six big retailers — H-E-B, Randalls, Walmart, Target, Walgreens and Whole Foods — agreed to try to reduce by 50 percent the amount of plastic bags they send to landfills. (Whole Foods later stopped offering plastic bags at checkout.)
- Austin American-Statesman

So will the council pass it this time? After this last election the only conservative council person lost a run off election to a more liberal candidate. We eill have to wait and see what actually transpires in the next few weeks.

the author is employed by Randall's (a Safeway Company) and owns stock in both Safeway and Austin based Whole Foods
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