July 13 - Bisbee, AZ Extends Bag Reduction Program Into 2013
After a six month trial period the City of Bisbee decided this past week to continue its plastic bag reduction program.
In December of 2011 CAW wrote a blog about the city of 6000 people and their voluntary bag program, the first in Arizona aimed at single-use bag waste.
Lying right along the southern border of Arizona, Bisbee enacted the program when it felt that plastic bag pollution was blighting its otherwise picturesque community.
With the advice of the City Manager, the Bisbee City Council has decided to continue the existing program into January of 2013 in lieu of a mandatory plastic bag fee. If the trial period does not produce the desired results, the city may implement a three phase ban of single-use plastic bags.
The ban would first add a 5 cent charge for bags sold in retailers making more than $1 million annually and gradually the ban would include businesses making more than $250,000 and eventually all retailers.
The voluntary reductions were enacted as a joint effort between retailers and the city to educate children, supermarket staff, and the community as a whole about how to cut back on their plastic bag use.
Headed by Arizona Food Marketing Alliance (AFMA), reductions were encouraged by putting up educational signs in parking lots and grocery stores and also with a plastic bag collecting competition at Greenway Elementary School.
List of Plastic Bag Laws across the U.S.
Learn about CAW's Campaign to End Single-Use Bags here in California.