Feb 14 - San Antonio Looks To Reduce Plastic Bag Litter

Like other local governments, the City of San Antonio, Texas, has a problem with plastic bag litter and is now looking to take action.

On February 11, 2014, San Antonio council man Cris Medina proposed that San Antonio reduce or ban plastic bags to decrease the plastic bag litter in the city. In a round table meeting with businesses, councilman Medina talked about ways to reduce single-use plastic bags and move towards more reusable bags.

The San Antonio River Authority (SARA) recently sent out a survey to residents in San Antonio to get a better idea on their thoughts on plastic bags and received over 400 responses to the survey. The survey is open until the end of March 2014. Some important results that came out of the survey so far include:

· 62% said they regularly bring reusable bags when they shop, 35.9% said they don’t
· 88% said they accept the plastic bags stores provide
· 91.7% believe it is somewhat to extremely important for the city to attempt to reduce plastic bags
· 55% are willing to pay a fee for the use of plastic bags, while 66% support an outright ban
· 95.7% believe there is a need to educate citizens about surface water quality

Based on the results of the survey, it seems that residents in San Antonio would welcome measures to reduce plastic bag waste. Should San Antonio proceed with a ban, they would be the third city in Texas with a plastic bag ban after Austin and Brownsville. See the list of local bag bans across the US here.

California is considering the first statewide ban of single-use plastic grocery bags. Learn more about SB 270.