City wants to ban use of plastic shopping bags

The Dallas City Council's Transportation and Environment Committee is scheduled to hear a briefing today in which the city's staff will recommend ways shoppers reduce their use of single-use plastic shopping bags. According to the report, 1.6 billion gallons of oil is used in the United States each year to manufacture these bags and their average cost to consumers is $10 to $15 that is added to the cost of goods purchased.

The environmental concerns with these bags are that they clog storm drains, pollute streams, kill marine life or they wind up at the landfill where they slowly degrade into more toxic substances which contaminate the soil and waterways.

The city is going to recommend, as a start, working with Dallas-area retailers to establish collection bins where plastic bags can be returned for recycling (good luck on convincing consumers to do that) and offering consumers the option to purchase reusable shopping bags, which many stores now offer, but few consumers purchase. At the same time, the city would initiate a "public outreach program" that tells consumers you are not being nice if you opt between paper or plastic.

At the same time, the city would pursue "legislative authority to institute either a per unit refund fee or Refund Value of 5 cents per bag." I'm not sure that this means except that somebody is going to get 5 cents a bag and it ain't going to be the shoppers because the briefing says the money will be used to pay for plastic bag recycling centers and clean-up initiatives.

Over the long haul, within three to five years, the city wants the Council to pass an ordinance completely banning single-use plastic bags.

This could be an interesting briefing. However, it is the fifth briefing on the committee's agenda today so there's an excellent chance the committee won't even hear it. Stay tuned.