Alaska Life Hack: 15 day countdown to Anchorage plastic bag ban

By
Suzanne Downing
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29

Ready. Set. …

On Sept. 15, the Anchorage will be the latest community in Alaska to ban single-use bags that merchants have used for decades to help shoppers move their purchases from the checkout stand to their homes.

The Anchorage bag ban was passed by the Anchorage Assembly last year, but implementation was delayed over the concern for for businesses with a large inventory of bags.

Sellers may provide non-plastic bags, such as paper, but must charge a minimum of $0.10 per bag. This is intended to change behavior and encourage more people to bring their canvas, woven and other multi-use bags to the grocery store with them.

Wasilla has had a plastic bag ban in place for over a year, but allows bags to be given out by stores if they are 2.25 mil or thicker, such as would be used if a shopper purchased clothing from an apparel shop. Stores may provide customers with any size recyclable paper or reusable carryout bags.

Other communities with bans include Bethel, Fairbanks, Homer, Hooper Bay, Kodiak, Palmer, and Unalaska.

Legislation to create a statewide tax on plastic bags was been offered in the House in 2018 by Anchorage Democrats Rep. Andy Josephson and Harriet Drummond, but didn’t advance. This year it was offered in HB 81 by Josephson, who is concerned about plastics, and micro-plastics  in the environment.
Are these bans effective or just virtue signaling?
“As important as banning single-use plastic bags is in terms of reducing it as a source, it’s not going to change the world,” Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste told National Geographic. “The main point, frankly, is to communicate to policy makers, the public, and to the industry that we’ve got to do something serious to reduce plastic packaging and if you all can’t figure out how to do it, we’re going to start banning your products one at a time.”
So, yes, it’s a bit of virtue signaling.