Portland Mayor Sam Adams announced yesterday that he was moving forward with a city plan to eliminate plastic bags throughout the city. The “Ban the Bag” movement has been gaining strength throughout the city, where vocal “bag monsters” – activists dressed in costumes made of over 500 plastic bags, the number an average American goes through in a year – give impassioned speeches and show up at city meetings. Portland activists have gathered 6,000 signatures in support of the ban and a letter of support signed by 70 local businesses and neighborhood groups.
The mayor’s statement was a timely one, as state legislators in Salem have just broken ground on a deal with grocers for a statewide ban in 2011 that would take effect in 2012. This ordinance would forbid retailers from offering single-use plastic bags and force a 5-cent charge for every paper bag.
“We all know that single-use shopping bags are used for just a few minutes, but the negative impact on the environment lasts forever,” Adams said at a noon rally outside City Hall sponsored by the Portland chapter of Surfrider Foundation and Environment Oregon.
Portland will be joining a dozen other U.S. cities that have outlawed plastic bags, and California is also considering a statewide ban. Only 5 percent of the 100 billion bags used by Americans every year are recycled. The rest end up in landfills or in waterways killing birds and marine mammals.
The Ban the Bag movement is yet another example of Portland’s status as a green city, where homeowners and government care about the environment and local opinion. I’m proud to live here!
