Elise Balin
Staff Writer
The city of Laramie took an initiative towards reducing plastic pollution from single use plastic bags with a multi-year program beginning in the fiscal year 2020-21.
The city council voted last Tues. in favor of taking a significant step toward reducing plastic waste pollution within the community. The plan, put in place by the council, will implement a community education program to reduce plastic waste which will begin this summer.
After the 12-18 month community education program takes place, the city plans to evaluate the efficacy of the education program and therefore make a final decision whether a plastic bag ban or plastic bag restrictions are needed or desired by community members.
Not only would a plastic bag education program or restriction affect the community members of Laramie, but it would also affect the students of UW. Trey Campbell, ASUW Director of Governmental and Community Affairs, emphasized the support that ASUW and the 107th administration shows toward the city’s efforts to reduce plastic bag use.
“An education program as a first step gives ASUW a chance to be a part of the change. Many college students are shopping for themselves for the first time and creating the good habit in the first place rather than the difficult task of changing habits,” said Campbell.
As the students of UW are a part of a younger generation that has emphasized the importance of regulating pollution, it may be important for students to be a part of the change.
“The combined efforts of the City of Laramie and ASUW can give students [a way] to create change and I believe they will embrace that. We have had some early conversations about the best way to do that, but nothing certain right now,” said Campbell.
The efforts by the City of Laramie is a response to a widely recognized issue of plastic pollution across the United States.
The Center for Biological Diversity reports that Americans use 100 billion plastic bags a year that are each used on average for 12 minutes. The average American family takes home almost 1,500 plastic shopping bags a year, which the majority of end up in landfills across the nation.
The City of Laramie is among a large number of communities and states to take action toward this issue. These single use retail plastic bags have recently been subject to regulations and bans across the United States, through statewide laws and municipal ordinances. The National Conference of State Legislators site the current states with enacted plastic bag legislation, including Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Vermont.
Single use plastic bags may be considered the number one consumer product across the world, yet they have caused controversy on a wide scale. The controversy is far from only being a subject of discussion in the United States, but also a number of countries across the world.
The World Resources Institute, a global research non profit released that 127 countries across the world have adopted some form of legislation to regulate the use of plastic bags. However, Italy, China, Bangladesh and many countries in Africa, including Kenya, the Congo, Rwanda and South Africa, have banned the use of plastic bags on a large scale.
The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health has recognized that reducing plastic litter inputs by source-reduction and waste management is one of the most valuable solutions to restore the oceans.
The widespread controversy in relation to single use plastic bags has caused communities such as Laramie to take action. Plastic pollution and ways we can reduce this environmental impact proves to be an important focus of discussion . . . a discussion that is far from over with in the City of Laramie.
