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Truckee contemplating plastic bag ban


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Truckee is considering an ordinance that would ban all plastic checkout bags and require businesses to impose a fee on recyclable paper checkout bags.

The ordinance’s main intention is to stimulate reusable bag use, and in effect, reduce Truckee’s waste through a dramatic decrease in the consumption of single-use checkout bags. All money collected by a business under this ordinance would be retained by the business and used to cover its implementation costs.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, less than 5 percent of single-use plastic bags are recycled.

Truckee officials say the ordinance has the potential to eliminate the waste generated by plastic bags, while also having a 50-80 percent reduction in the amount of single-use paper shopping bags that are used and thrown away.

Staff is soliciting feedback from the community via this online survey, and from businesses via this survey link.

For more information, contact Nichole Dorr at ndorr@townoftruckee.com or (530) 582.2909.

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Comments (6)
  1. Michael Thompson says - Posted: January 12, 2013

    I am old enough that I remember when the environmentalists and maybe even the government were calling Paper bags (THE DEVIL)
    Save the tree’s!! say no to paper!
    And along came the crappy plastic bags.

    The Check out person always asks me what I prefer Paper or plastic?

    I go with both, they both have thier place around the home.

    The reusable bags I do not belive are healthy. Unless you have everything dropped into the plastic bag before you put that in the Cloth bag.

    So in response Who cares about Truckee, the place where they tax residents to pay the Hospital administrator 500,000+ a year.

  2. Michael Thompson says - Posted: January 12, 2013

    Just to ramble on a bit more, this is more than the local Grocery stores.
    To go food from restaurants?
    Clothing stores
    Gift shops
    Think of every store that sells something, anything.
    The money they have invested in the little and big plastic bags with the company logo.
    What an under reasoned mess this would cause for probably little to no effect on (Anything)

  3. Kitsch says - Posted: January 12, 2013

    Many cities, such as San Jose, encourage the use of reusable bags of any type. In fact, the customer is charged 10 cents for each plastic/paper bag the store dispenses. This goes for grocery stores, clothing stores, stores in the mall, etc. I think it is a great idea to reduce, reuse, recycle. It probably makes the city some money as well!

    As for reusable bags being unhealthy, most things are packaged, and if not, one should be washing it before consuming it if there is concern. Sometimes I think our overly germophobic society is its own worst enemy.

  4. Joe Doaks says - Posted: January 13, 2013

    Kitsch you are right on. Humans are certainly their own worst enemy.

  5. nature bats last says - Posted: January 13, 2013

    Having and using reusable cloth bags is easy and Ive been doing it for over 10 years. I am glad that communities are charging people for the plastic or paper bags they get from the stores. I think they should charge more so that would encourage others to use reusable bags more often. People are such whiners!!

  6. dj short flo says - Posted: January 14, 2013

    San Jose does it, works well.