City Council, Columbia Missouri : Ban single-use plastic bags in Columbia, Missouri

Please ONLY Residents of Columbia, Missouri, USA should sign. We appreciate the good wishes of those outside the city limits but we need to keep this petition local to show the City Council of the broad-based support for this change.In the why this is important to me, you could also enter your Columbia, MO address for reference by your council person.Single-use plastic bags require petroleum oil to produce and energy to transport to store locations. 12 million barrels of oil are used to produce the 100 billion bags used each year in the United States. Most bags are used for less than 20 minutes and then thrown in the trash. Less than 12% are recycled. Plastic bags never biodegrade. Instead they break into very small pieces of plastic that pollute the soil and water and are eaten by fish and other wildlife. These bits then enter the human food supply.

In view of the need to reduce our usage of fossil fuels and the impact of this plastic pollution on wildlife and human health, we need to move to a more sustainable approach including greater usage of reusable bags.

The proposed ordinance would ban the store providing single-use plastic bags at check-out for stores selling groceries, pharmacies and convenience stores. Bags used for produce, wrapping meat or carrying bulk food items to check-out will still be allowed. Paper bags would be sold at 10 cents each with some exemptions for persons on food assistance programs.