City Council in Fort Collins Makes Efforts to Reduce Plastic Waste

Recycle The officials at Fort Collins are trying hard to reduce plastic waste in their locality. The city council is planning to ban plastic shopping bags altogether or charge shoppers for singleuse plastic bags. They are worried about the plastic waste that is generated in the city on a daily basis, and so they are contemplating on whether or not they should implement this policy.

City officials concerned about the waste production issues

Every city has the moral responsibility to take steps in order to reduce it’s environmental footprint. Susie Gordon, an Environmental Resource Planner for the city of Fort Collins, stated that all the officials are well aware of the waste production problems within the city. According to her, the residents and the government are aware of the measures that need to be taken to reduce the environmental degradation; however, no one seems to act on them sternly.

Keeping in mind the escalating waste disposal issues, the city council has decided to either ban or find replacements for plastic bags in the city. The officials are expected to discuss these policies later this month and have also invited the residents to share their point of view. To make an informed decision, the staff at the city council has also been examining the policies that other states have implemented to deal with this issue.

City council members conduct a study on bag bans and eco-friendly promotional items

The city council of Fort Collins spent an amount of $5000 to research on how other cities have dealt with problems of plastic waste. They conducted a study using the help of a local group named Brendle Group, and examined what would be the possible environmental, social, and economic impacts of implementing a ban on plastic bags.

This study was used to analyze 3 major components an educational campaign on recycling, a ban on plastic bags, and implementing a fee on the use of plastic bags. According to this study, the first option of conducting an educational campaign would not help the city in its cause. Through a campaign, only a small portion of the population will try and recycle plastic bags.

The second option, according to the study, would help the city council the most but would create havoc in the merchant community. The last option of charging a fee on the use of plastic bags would help the city council’s cause at a moderate level. But this option would impact the poor drastically and they would probably be the only residents who would switch to using ecofriendly promotional items instead of plastic.

The city council is considering these results and is likely to make a decision by the end of this month.

Source: http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20121104/NEWS01/311050006/Fort-Collins-examines-options-from-education-ban-reduce-usage-disposable-shopping-bags?nclick_check=1

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