When my husband and I arrived in Austin the
whole recycling thing took us by surprise. Sure, we were expecting a huge
difference from Venezuela’s recycling activities, but there were certain things
that we didn’t anticipate about this city’s way of living.
It all began when we made our first trip
to H-E-B. When we finished selecting all our groceries, we headed to the
cashier to pay. The friendly, young austinite with the red t-shirt and cap kindly
asked: do you need a bag? And we answered: yes please. Carefully placing the
items inside the bag, the cashier wished us a nice day. As always, I reviewed
the printed version of my unnecessary purchases, just in case something needed
to be returned afterwards. Stunned, I realized they had charged us for the
plastic bag! I couldn’t help but wonder, was this an H-E-B exclusive policy?
Was Target going to charge us for bags as well?
Soon,
we discovered almost every supermarket in the city had the same no-free-bag
policy, or even worse, no-bag-at-all policy. We were astonished. After going
online to find out the reason for this madness, we learned about The Bag Ban!
Effective since March the 1st, 2013, the ban passed by the Austin
City Council forbid the use of thin plastic bags on every business, shop or
retailer; it specified shoppers should carry their purchases in reusable bags. Certain
exceptions were made such as thick plastic (easy to recycle) bags and paper
bags made out of recycled materials, which could be sold to customers in case
they forgot their reusable bag (CLEARLY our situation).
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| Photo Credit: austinpost.org |
I must admit, even though it took a while
to get used to it, I find the Bag Ban (from now on: B.B) to be an exemplary
policy that should be applied in every city in the world. We don’t realize the
harm we are causing the environment by littering with these non-biodegradable,
single use bags. Our first negative reaction, of course, was natural. We were
not used to this, and neither were austinites until March the 1st 2013;
the B.B made a lot of citizens angry, especially plastic bag manufacturers.
Mitzie Stelte from Community Impact Newspaper mentions that, at the very
beginning of the B.B, people started complaining about the cost of reusable
bags. Shortly after, very thrifty ones were available at many local retailers;
even Dollar stores carried pretty decent ones. Sequentially, citizens began to
adapt to this new formality and transitioned to a more conscious, responsible
way of living. Nowadays, there are hardly any austinites that do not own a
reusable bag. It is rare to see a thin, plastic, non-biodegradable bag in this
city.
Living in Austin has showed us that, although
it seems impossible, these recycling measures can be applied. There is a
different lifestyle waiting right around the corner for citizens that do not
recycle, City Councils just have to take action and guide them to it. There are
animals all over the world suffering from the consequences of contamination,
and many people are not aware of the damage they are causing the environment by
acting irresponsibly and not cooperating with the recycling measures. We should
all just follow Austin’s footsteps and help save our Planet.
