Comments on "Just Like A Texan" Blog

I agree with Helen’s point in "Just Like A Texan" blog that plastic bag ban in Austin is a ridiculous law from the Austin City Council. I am a supporter of green environment but I do not see any point how banning plastic bag only in Austin will save the environment when it is not banned outside Austin city limit such as in Cedar Park, Round Rock. As a result, it does not serve the intended purpose when People living in Austin can shop just outside the city limit with plastic bags. Besides, Helen mentioned that reusable bags are unsanitary and can spread germs because people do not often wash the reusable bags. There have been some studies that support this point. For example, after San Francisco passed America's “first-in-the-nation ban” on plastic bags in chain grocery stores and drugstores in 2007, a research by law professors Jonathan Klick and Joshua Wright of Wharton School Institute for Law and Economics found out that food-borne illnesses in San Francisco increased 46 percent leading to 5.4 annual additional deaths after the bag ban went into effect in 2007. The proponents of bag ban argue that plastic bags are not reusable but there is little truth to that. We reuse the plastics bags in our daily lives such as carrying stuffs, trash can liner in the bathrooms etc. Thus, the plastic bag ban in Austin should be repealed.