Portland Plastic Bag Ban Will Apply to All Retailers

RecyclingPortland was one of the very first cities in the United States of America to impose the ban on plastic bags, after which the other cities followed suit. It has been a year since Portland banned plastic bags in large stores. The City Council of Portland is currently considering the expansion of the bag ban program to all sorts of businesses. Apart from banning the usage of plastic bags in the city, the council is also looking to impose a 5 cent fee per paper bag offered.

Expansion of the bag ban is one of several options

Expanding the plastic bag ban to include all the retail businesses was one of the several options that were presented to the City Council on 10th October. The Bureau of Sustainability and Planning presented the ideas regarding the expansion of the bag ban to the council members in the meeting that took place on Wednesday. It is the same department, which is overseeing the bag ban program as well.

Over 170 stores in Portland had to follow the ban on plastic bags last year. The stores that followed the ban were either more than ten thousand square feet in area or had gross annual sales of over two million dollars.

Wholesale reusable bags are the perfect alternatives

Since plastic bags were banned in Portland, the stores started offering customers wholesale reusable bags for shopping and carrying purposes. Portland receives information from at least 23 retailers, who were in association with Northwest Grocers Association during the bag ban last year. According to the official city report, the usage of wholesale reusable bags had increased by almost 40 percent. Also, the usage of highly recycled paper bags had increased by 50 percent.

The city bureau also reported very few complaints regarding non-compliance at the stores ever since the ban was imposed on smaller stores last year. Officials in Portland are suggesting that the city needs to undertake an evaluation of various policy options regarding the ban on plastic bags.

Options provided by city officials

The policy options regarding the ban include:

  • Maintaining the current policy
  • Expanding the present policy to all businesses
  • Expanding the existing policy to all the businesses and including a five cent charge per paper bag.

In the 3-page report, however, there isn’t any formal recommendation made regarding the choice of the policy option. Quite a few cities have been highlighted in the report though, which are currently following one of the above mentioned policy options.

Source: http://blog.oregonlive.com/portlandcityhall/2012/10/plastic_bag_ban_could_expand_t.html

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