Posted on 12/12/2011 4:32:42 PM PST by Jonx6
The City of Austin might enact one of the broadest bag bans in the nation and prohibit disposable paper and plastic bags at all checkout counters starting in January 2016.
In the meantime, starting in 2013, retailers could continue to offer thin, so-called single-use bags, but customers would have to pay 25 cents apiece for them, according to a draft of the ban. That three-year period would give the public and retailers time to prepare for the ban, city officials say.
More than two dozen U.S. cities have enacted bag bans since 2007. Most prohibit plastic only, or ban plastic and impose a fee on paper. Austin would be one of only a few U.S. cities to ban both, said Bob Gedert , director of Austin Resource Recovery, the city department that wrote the draft ban and handles trash collection and recycling.
Under the ban, retailers would be able to offer only reusable bags, defined as those that have handles and are made of fabric or durable materials or are thick paper or plastic bags with some recycled content.
Exempt from the ban would be restaurant carryout bags, bags for wine and beer, dry cleaning bags, newspaper delivery bags and bags that hold meat, fish, produce, bulk foods or pharmaceuticals.
The city commission that reviews trash and recycling matters will discuss the draft ban Wednesday. The City Council will consider and might vote on it next month.
City Council members and environmental activists say plastic bags pollute waterways, harm wildlife, clog drainage systems and often end up as unsightly litter or landfill trash. But others say paper bags also cause environmental harm, taking as much or more energy to make and transport...
(Excerpt) Read more at statesman.com ...
And how ever goofy the city council is, Austin functions extremely well.
The unemployed rate is one of the lowest for a big city in the country, the city has one of the highest percentages of college grads and property values in the city have been stable or increased over the last several years.
A month or so ago when we had our first big rain in a long time, a pot hole developed on my street. I called the city and the pothole was fixed that very day.
Good city services.
Austin: The San Francisco of Texas. Or, as I like to call it, Hanoi in the Hill Country
I am not too familiar with Texas having been there only once and other than history and small business dealings I have little specific knowledge. Since Perry ran for President the good state of the Texas economy has come out. It looks like Austin is taking advantage of the State’s over all good fortune. Be careful, California was once rich and we have been taken over by a Third World coalition that is seizing and transferring wealth at a rapid rate. Our economy is about destroyed. People are leaving and Mexicans are moving in, thus our overall population has not declined. The problem with the Mexican reconquista being that they are unproductive-taking rather than giving. This will add to the rapidity of the on going California collapse! At any rate I’m glad you are doing ok. Just be vigilant.
It’s interesting that 4 new Super Walmarts will be built around Austin but not IN Austin. I know it will make a difference to me. Busy Bodies.
Excuse my ignorance but is Austin a large university city? Such towns are usually leftist-thanks to the Supreme Court decision saying college kids could vote at their school rather than where their parents lived.
Fire them. Fire them all. Every one of the bastards responsible needs to leave public life immediately.
Easy solution for me. I’ll start shopping in Pflugerville and Round Rock.
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Sigh.....
Austin. Texas’ very own piece of San Fransicko.
“The City of Austin might enact one of the broadest bag bans in the nation and prohibit disposable paper and plastic bags at all checkout counters starting in January 2016.”
The Texas legislature should stop this, by enacting a statewide law that only the state of Texas will have the power to regulate the use of paper and/or plastic bags within Texas, and that no city within Texas may unilaterally ban the use of such bags.
If such a law could be passed, I don’t believe that municipalities could have it overturned in court.
That would stop the fools of Austin in their tracks, and put ‘em in the bag....
LOL!
Austin is Texas’ own little San Fransicko.
Fortuantely, in Texas, the infection is contained.
Jeez...just when I’m done stockpiling 100 W incandescent bulbs, do I now have to stockpile bags, too? I missed out when the government banned our regular gasoline cans and I now have these crappy things that leak all over the place. I missed out when they banned reasonable volume showerheads and sink faucets. I swear I shall never miss out again on things banned by the bastards in government.
Again Austin has to go out of its way to show everyone else just how Anal they can be.
Not really the rules of the people you demand to clean it. They may well be as against the nanny laws as you are.
Can you buy beer now, through self check, where you live? Where I am, the cashier has to be old enough to sell it and check your Id, if you look to him/her to be under 35 years old.
This is another egregious illustration/example of people using government to take away free choice of other people. When will people get off the mantra of some will-of-the-wisp ‘government’ and understand their next door neighbor or the guy across town or any other such (s)elected person are the ones doing such to other people. We have passed the point of necessary representative government to the stage of personalized government based on self interested humans. I have experienced how ‘government’ at local and state levels have made all kinds of excuses to maintain not the essentials of ‘government’ but instead just for perpetuating income for employees. No government agency should be allowed to be under under organized unions.
I've been to Texas a few times to visit my wife's relatives. Hot and humid, yeah. But it was big- crossing it took a while, coming from California on I-10.
Unfortunately, California sets the pace for the rest of the country. What goes on here (statism, high taxes, police state) doesn't stay here- it migrates across the country. We used to be the world's fifth largest economy- today, we're the eigth. That's what liberalism has wrot for us, and by extension, is headed your way.
Matter of fact, if you want to go 'long' on where the country is headed, just look to us. We're about to raise taxes, again, to support our public union employees who are so essential to a Capitalist Economy. Now, that's capitalism you can be proud of!
I envy Texas' gun control- "use both hands". Ours is: "put your hands behind your back, you're under arrest" for being within two blocks of a loaded gun.
Our government stinks, our laws stink, our cops and courts stink, and our teachers stink and can't teach. What's not to love about California? Hey, we've drifted so far from the vision the founding fathers had that we ought to be an island. And if Mother Nature has her way with the San Andreas Fault, we just might be. As Texans, that's your only hope. Trust me.
I live with a Californian.
His Californian GF, recently came over for a visit. She seems to really like me so we had a good dinner all of us. She wanted to get to know me a bit better, seeing as I’d been her bf’s tenant for awhile.
She was your usual typical Californian. She threw out all his plastic dishes (including mine), to rid the house of evil plastic, etc. She said, and she believed that she could convert me to the CA way of life. She couldn’t understand why someone with such ‘impeccable’ liberal credentials would like it there in TX.
So we continued talking, I was enjoying this conversation, because I give off that impression that I’m some sort of liberal to most folks. Anyways, I start praising TX and the good stuff there. Then about halfway through, she cottons on and says, wait a minute.
You chose to live in TX - Austin, not because you’re liberal...
ding ding ding. We have a winner.
It was like seeing a light come on, and she was a bit taken back by that. Still firmly believing that CA was God’s gift to the world. The funny part.
I don’t make much money doing what I do, and she was concerned that I was just barely getting by. She asked why I wasn’t on food stamps, like all the folks in CA who are who are illegals etc.
I was like, ok, you’re a conservative! Welcome to the party. I told her, if you think you can make it in CA, you are mistaken. Life is far better in TX. But if you’re going to leave and leave the place to me, I ain’t gonna complain. But 5 years down the line, you heard it from me first. Come here, be with him, you’ll be ahead of the game.
But who knows? I should just encourage him to go so maybe I can get a good deal on this place.
“As Texans, that’s your only hope. Trust me.”
Sir, I’ve had an eventful life so far, that’s been so much fun. If there was hope for me that I would come over to this side, and have the chance to pass this joy onto other people, there’s hope for Californians too.
I speak of this as someone who quite enjoys Tex-Mex, fiesta, a Catholic who’s parish is half and half, etc. I am working on my spanish so that I can be better prepared.
I chose to come here rather than anywhere else in the country, because of the blessings in TX that you find nowhere else. TX will be the last place in the republic (partially because TX has it’s own culture that resists both CA and NY), and also because TX Mex folks are not like CA Mex folks.
There is no where else. Europe is doomed. Canada is doomed. Most of America is already underwater and is a sinking ship. TX? Well, when a third of all the jobs are in TX alone with job growth, that speaks volumes.
America has a substantial lead over the rest of the world, that lead is going to grow every year from here on out. That stretches out at least 50 years. You’re telling me that the greatest nation in the world can’t find some way to make that work for them?
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