Plastic bag issue to be approached with public education
campaign
It’s a worthy cause, reducing the unnecessary use of plastic
bags, but it’s also a problem to address solely through education
and without penalizing local businesses and consumers.
Hollister leaders have begun to broach the plastic bag debate by
gathering information on other communities’ programs and
restrictions and talking to the county Integrated Waste Department
about the possibility of unrolling an aggressive educational
campaign to spread awareness.
Plastic bag issue to be approached with public education campaign
It’s a worthy cause, reducing the unnecessary use of plastic bags, but it’s also a problem to address solely through education and without penalizing local businesses and consumers.
Hollister leaders have begun to broach the plastic bag debate by gathering information on other communities’ programs and restrictions and talking to the county Integrated Waste Department about the possibility of unrolling an aggressive educational campaign to spread awareness.
For city council members, that’s where their official roles should end because they have many more pressing matters on their plate such as the challenge to help spur economic development and a budget that suffers from continued deficits.
To this point, council members have denied any notion that they might plan to implement restrictions or penalties against plastic bag use in local stores, as cities such as San Francisco. That’s a wise tack because there is no comparison between Hollister and such larger metropolitan areas.
The political priorities are much different here, and San Benito County’s relative size under such a punitive scenario could potentially cripple many of its smaller merchants who cannot afford the additional cost when they’re already getting by with small profit margins.
In Hollister, as long as council members stay reasonable on the subject, that should mean education is the chosen approach. And there’s no more appropriate organization to handle such a program than Integrated Waste.
Integrated Waste is a countywide organization, which means its oversight of an awareness campaign could stretch into rural areas such as Aromas, Tres Pinos and San Juan Bautista. It also has the expertise under Mandy Rose to execute the effort without Hollister’s council directing her how to accomplish the goal.
The bottom line is, many stores simply can’t afford to eliminate plastic and go all paper. For those that potentially can, one strategy to cut costs might be to form a cooperative among merchants so they can purchase paper bags in bulk. The upside is a potential savings. The downside is that stores would lose the chance to market their names on the bags.
Whatever the cause becomes, though, we encourage Integrated Waste to oversee the campaign and local citizens to reuse when possible while considering the long-term effects of unnecessary waste on the environment.
