Last night, I was in line at HEB to check out and overheard something which made me think: the customer in front of me was from out of state and was here visiting a family member. Not being from Austin, she was unaware of our ban on plastic bags. When offered paper bags at nominal fee of 10¢ per bag, (which by the way, is about the same as the production cost of the bag) she was offended, because she, as a customer, deserved free plastic bags. She would have spent literally 20¢, because she didn't have that many groceries, just some party supplies, but that little exchange made me think about how we understand our ecological impact.
In Austin, we've got it pretty good when it comes to waste conscientiousness. And a lot of it, I think we take for granted (or, at least I know I do). For example, many cities elsewhere in Texas and in the US don't have recycling programs or waste combating policies beyond federal regulations. Our Zero Waste policies are actually quite a bit fashion forward, but are by no means unique.
Looking back to the history of environmentalism, (discussed on 24 and 28 Feb) Austin City Council aims at keeping 90% of discarded material (the fancier way of saying 'trash') out of our landfills as a part of the city's Resource Recovery Master Plan (City of Austin). But regular folks (from and not from Austin) resist the bag ban as a part of this plan. So: why?
As we talk about environmentalism, conservation, sustainability, et al. ad inf. there's two ways people generally talk about becoming sustainable: developing better tech or merely using less. But using less, like the (all too common) exchange above means people need to change their behavior in order for us to become sustainable.
In the next post, I'll introduce some things we can do, just as urban residents, to work toward reducing waste. I'll also begin introducing organizations around town for those who want to get out and do something more active.
Works Cited
City of Austin. "Zero Waste by 2040." austintexas.gov. City of Austin, n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.
Hajj0 ms. "Plastic waste at Coco Beach in India." Digital photograph. Web. 22 Mar. 2016. Source