Fiscal Note
No appropriation is required.
Title
Authorizing City staff to prepare a report on the feasibility of banning plastic shopping bags.
Body
WHEREAS, it is estimated that average U.S. resident will use 330 plastic bags per year, which means that there will be 75,000,000 plastic bags used by residents of the City of Madison; and
WHEREAS, the success of plastic bag recycling nationwide, while improving, has been mixed at best; and
WHEREAS, the City of Madison, in response to the overwhelming number of plastic bags in the waste stream, added clean plastic bags to its mandatory recycling ordinance in June 2009 and established a City-operated drop-off program for the bags to supplement the collection efforts of retailers in the community; and
WHEREAS, the City of Madison added plastic bags to its curbside recycling program in 2012, becoming one of the few cities in the United States with a curbside program for plastic bags; and
WHEREAS, the Streets Division ended its drop off program due to the increased convenience of curbside collection; and
WHEREAS, the Streets Division has collected less than five tons of plastic bags since adding bags to the curbside program; and
WHEREAS, the small amount of bags recovered at the curb appears to follow a nationwide pattern of minimal recovery of plastic bags for recycling;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that a staff team under the direction of the Public Work's Strategic Initiatives Coordinator be formed to prepare a report for the Common Council on the state of Madison's plastic bag program and to recommend improvements to the program including, current recovery rates and factors influencing those ares, the costs and benefits for other cities that have banned or regulated plastic bags, the potential for charging a fee on bags, what types of bags should be covered by or exempted from any bag ordinance, the possibility of instituting some form of a plastic bag ban in Madison, and the science behind such regu...
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