Poll
There is a popular + growing movement to ban plastic bags across the U.S. and globally.
Reuse This Bag estimates that a plastic bag has a 12-minute lifespan from when it’s initially filled with groceries to when it is discarded. Those same plastic bags take anywhere from 10 to 1,000 years to decompose, depending on the environmental conditions of where they are disposed. A few minutes of use clearly has a long-term environmental impact.
The grocery store Aldi already charges small fees for plastic (and paper) bags, while Publix offers recycling of bags (foam trays and egg cartons, too) at all of their storefronts – but there’s currently no city-wide ordinance requiring a charge in Lakeland.
Photo by Publix
Florida is one of six states that has a preemption law (which loosely states that cities cannot ban plastic bags), however; it is currently in a stage of clarifying or repealing the bill in the state legislature. Coral Gables + Gainesville have already gone as far as banning plastic bags entirely. St Petersburg is working on a plan to prohibit them.
Washington, D.C. was at the forefront of implementing a bag fee ten years ago, after a study found that plastic bags made up 70% of the trash in the Anacostia River. The slogan is “Skip the Bag, Save the River.” By 2014, the number of plastic bags found in river cleanups was down 72%.
Opponents of the fee say that it burdens everyday shoppers without significantly changing consumer habits. (As one Memphis resident said in regards to a proposed plastic bag tax, “When you have a large family and seven cents a bag, that’s a lot.”)
And although the money is supposed to go toward environmental restoration, some argue that fees are just a way to divert consumer money toward the government. Some even contest that reusable bags are less sanitary than plastic.
However, as plastic bag bans continue to be initiated by local governments, the list of cities involved will continue to grow.
