1st NY County Bans Plastic Bags ~ Should CNY Be Next?

Hudson Valley is the first place in NY to ban plastic bags countywide. Should CNY be next?

If you live in Ulster County, you'll have to bring your bags or buy recyclable paper bags at the store. There will be a six month "educational period" before the ban is enforced.

WPDH reports shoppers will be required to bring their bag or pay a fee of five cents per recyclable paper bag supplied by the store.

A special provision of the law will wave the fee for those receiving SNAP (food stamps) and WIC. You can expect to see stores begin to roll out new policies soon to make sure they're in compliance with the law before it goes into effect this summer.

Do you think CNY should follow suit? It will help the environment, wildlife, oceans, it will reduce litter, look cleaner, the list goes on and on. Health Guidance says it can take hundreds of years to break down a plastic bag at a landfill.

The breakdown rate is so slow the chances that the bag will harmlessly go away are extremely slim. Throughout the world plastic bags are responsible for suffocation deaths of woodland animals as well as inhibiting soil nutrients...It has been estimated that one bag has the potential to unintentionally kill one animal per every three months due to unintentional digestion or inhalation.

Now if you visit the Bag the Ban site, they say plastic bags are the most environmentally friendly option at the checkout.

ENERGY SAVINGS: Plastic bags require 70% less energy to manufacture and consume 96% less water than what’s used to make paper bags.
DISPOSAL ADVANTAGES: Once disposed, reusable bags take up to 9.3% more space than plastic bags in landfills.
REUSABLE COTTON BAGS AREN’T REUSED ENOUGH: Standard reusable cotton grocery bags must be reused 131 times "to ensure that they have lower global warming potential than" a plastic bag used only once.
NO OIL INVOLVED: American-made plastic bags are produced from byproducts of natural gas, not oil.

Should plastic bags be banned in CNY?