Greening Austin Daily

Plastic Bag Law May Impede Local Efforts to Reign in Bag Use

8th April, 2011 - Posted by katherine - 1 Comment

KUT had this article today about a law proposed in the Texas House which, if approved, would require grocery stores to recycle plastic shopping bags and put reusable bags up on the shelf. It sounds like a good thing, but the law would preempt local governments from having stricter regulations than the Texas law. So if,  for example, Austin decided it wanted to ban the use of plastic bags completely, it wouldn’t be able to because that would conflict with the Texas state law.

An excerpt from the KUT story is enlightening:

But bill supporters say if towns are allowed to regulate plastic bags themselves it could hurt the state’s economy.  Doug DuBois is a lobbyist with the Texas Petroleum Marketers and Convenient Stores Association.

“One thing too to point out about the difference between reusable bags and plastic bags: reusable bags are an overseas import, they’re made in China…Plastic bags are a Texas industry. They’re manufactured in Texas, we recycle them in Texas, we make recycled material out the plastic bags, durable material like decking and fence posts that’s sold by local Texas retailers. Plastic bags are a positive impact to the Texas economy, reusable bags are not,” he said. “Our intent is to be able to talk with city council in jurisdictions who are considering a ban on plastic bags and talking to them about the options of increasing recycling and use of reusable bags versus a ban.”

Click on the tag to this post “plstic bags” for more austin news on the issue.