Jun 3 - Truckee's Bag Ban: Overwhelmingly Positive Response

The first day of implementation for Truckee’s bag ban, June 1st 2014, was overwhelmingly successful.

Local resident Merideth Walkington says "we should have never had [plastic bags] in the first place, and they shouldn’t have lasted as long as they did".

Some residents opted to purchase the recyclable paper bags for the ten cent charge, but the large majority came prepared with reusable bags, either from home or supplied to them.

Truckee High School’s "Envirolution Club" was a major component of this success. Club members stood outside Safeway and Save Mart, handing customers free reusable bags supplied by the town. Savannah Wilkinson, a member of the high school club, says "Almost everyone has been really excited about it" and that the experience has been "overwhelmingly positive".

Safeway also provided free reusable bags for costumers spending $25 or more, under the allowed promotional period of the ordinance.

With this town collaboration, many residents do not expect the transition to reusable bags to be a problem and are excited to become more conscious consumers.

One shopper visiting from Bakersfield, California did raise concerns that this would negatively impact tourists from other towns that do not have ordinances in place. However many tourists to the Truckee area are usually from the Bay, where many of the 108 local ordinances have been adopted. Moreover, SB 270 will create an even playing field for bag ordinances, and hopefully mirror the positive response of Truckee’s ban.