.
PASSED
in the State House of Representatives
on May 9, 2019, by a vote of
120-24
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Purpose: To make it illegal for businesses to provide “single use” plastic bags to customers at the point of sale, or to provide polystyrene food or beverage containers, or to provide plastic straws except upon request, and to require businesses to charge at least 10¢ per paper bag (if not given away for free).
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Analysis: Those voting YES believe this is a necessary step to reduce the amount of single use plastics in the waste stream and in the environment. It is an attempt to “change the culture” that will force consumers to use bring and re-use cloth or “multi-use” plastic bags.
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Those voting NO believe this is an example of government overreach and that the measure will ultimately not benefit the environment because manufacturing paper bags produces more greenhouse gas than the thin plastic bags and requires more natural resources. It takes four trucks (diesel emissions) to deliver the same amount of paper bags as one truck does for plastic. Where bag bans are in effect and stores stopped giving away thin plastic bags at check out, sales of thick plastic garbage-can liners spiked up 120% (78% of “single use” plastic bags are, in fact, reused), so plastic was not being removed from the waste stream. Cloth and plastic fabric bags have an even greater negative impact on the environment as they require vast environmental resources (tractors, pesticides, water, etc.) to grow the cotton for the cloth bags, and they are all manufactured in Asia, meaning they must be transported by cargo ship (fuel oil/ocean pollution) to the US before being distributed nationwide in trucks. Additionally, this policy puts out of work US based union jobs manufacturing thin plastic bags and rewards those Asian countries that are doing the overwhelming bulk of polluting the oceans with plastic.
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As Recorded in the House Journal, Thursday, May 9, 2019: “Shall the bill be read a third time? was decided in the affirmative. Yeas, 120. Nays, 24.” ( Read the Journal, p. 1290-1303.)
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