Brownsville Residents Oppose Plastic Bag Ban Nearly 2 to 1

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Aug 26, 2010, 09:54 ET

Survey Shows Little Support for Bag Ban

ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new survey of Brownsville residents shows that nearly two to one oppose the City Commission's plan to ban plastic bags at retail stores beginning in January.

Slightly more than half (51%) of the respondents in the survey would like to see the ban repealed or postponed, while only 28 percent support the ban. The remaining survey respondents were undecided.

The survey was conducted August 19-21 among 300 Brownsville adults and has a 5.6 percent margin of error.

The survey found that most residents (82%) are aware of the ban and that three quarters (74%) use plastic bags as their primary means of carrying food home from grocery stores. Nearly nine in ten (88%) reuse plastic bags at home for trash can liners, cleaning up after pets and other duties.

More than eight in ten (83%) are aware that they can recycle plastic bags at major retail and grocery stores, such as Walmart and HEB.

"This survey demonstrates that the City Commission is out of step with Brownsville voters," said Rudy Underwood of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the organization that sponsored the survey. "The citizens of Brownsville clearly oppose banning this valued product that most people rely on and then reuse in their homes."

Underwood also pointed out that although the Texas plastic bag manufacturing industry supports 2,600 well-paying local Texas jobs, most reusable bags are imported.

Local retailers, businesses and supporters of plastic bag recycling have asked the City Commission to reconsider the impending ban. Opponents of the ban hope the Commission will choose a more effective solution for reducing overall waste, such as policies to increase plastic bag recycling in Brownsville.

The ban threatens to eliminate recycling opportunities not only for plastic bags but for all of the other plastic wraps that can be recycled with bags at major retailers and grocers. Brownsville residents can return their plastic shopping bags and many types of product wraps – dry cleaning bags, newspaper bags and wraps from bread, diapers and cases of soda – to be recycled along with the bags. Jurisdictions across the country from King County (WA) to Phoenix (AZ) and from Chicago (IL) to New York City (NY) and Philadelphia (PA) have adopted bag recycling as the best approach to reducing waste and litter.

The survey was conducted by American Directions Group, a polling company founded in 1972 with services across the country.

For more information on plastic bags and related public policy, including efforts to recycle them, please visit: http://www.plasticbagfacts.org/.

http://www.americanchemistry.com

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) represents the leading companies engaged in the business of chemistry. ACC members apply the science of chemistry to make innovative products and services that make people's lives better, healthier and safer. ACC is committed to improved environmental, health and safety performance through Responsible Care®, common sense advocacy designed to address major public policy issues, and health and environmental research and product testing. The business of chemistry is a $674 billion enterprise and a key element of the nation's economy. It is one of the nation's largest exporters, accounting for ten cents out of every dollar in U.S. exports. Chemistry companies are among the largest investors in research and development. Safety and security have always been primary concerns of ACC members, and they have intensified their efforts, working closely with government agencies to improve security and to defend against any threat to the nation's critical infrastructure.

SOURCE American Chemistry Council