LOGAN – An ordinance banning single use plastic bags recently failed to pass in Logan, but that hasn’t stopped city leaders from looking for alternatives to create a plastic reduction plan.
Logan City’s Environmental Department is working with the Bear River Health Department and Cache County’s Solid Waste Advisory Board to implement a “Plastic Management Program” for Cache County.
“We are working towards some type of a plan so that we can reduce the amount of plastic waste that goes in to the landfill,” according to Cache County Executive Craig Buttars, who also sits on the Solid Waste Advisory Board. “We are also hoping to increase the amount that’s actually recycled.”
In March 2019, Logan City Council member Herm Olsen proposed an ordinance that would have banned single use plastic bags typically distributed in grocery and convenience stores. A vote on the ordinance was tabled in hopes that all 19 cities in the county would work together to address its solid waste problem.
To combat the plastic problem in Cache County, an effort is underway to educate the public and local businesses on the impact plastic bags have on our landfills and the environment. The campaign will utilize newspaper, radio, social media and community events to get out the word. The Logan City Environmental Department shared a post on Facebook this week, claiming that 45 million single use plastic bags are distributed in Cache County each year.
The County is also reaching out to local retailers and looking for feedback in hopes of developing a bag reduction policy that would reduce the amount of litter associated with plastic bags and plastic film.
Over the course of a year, Buttars said the county will determine if it’s economical to “gather the plastics, bail them and perhaps once or twice a month ship them to a facility that is still doing recycling,” he said.
The county has invited more than 100 retailers in the valley to attend a meeting at the end of July. The aim is to gain their support and ultimately endorse some form of a plastic reduction plan.
Don’t follow a garage truck on garbage can day. You’ll be dodging plastic bags flying out of the trucks.
It would greatly reduce the use if cashiers of today put more then 1 item in the bags… it frustrates me how the kid bagging things nowadays won’t fill the dang things..
I need help at sunrise elemntary for a project on getting rid of plastic ( Smithfield Utah).