Madalynn Wilson
Lantern Staff
In response to a task force created by the Wichita City Council, Kansas lawmakers have composed a bill that would prohibit cities from banning or imposing taxes on single-use plastic bags, take-out containers or plastic straws over the next five years. The House’s Committee on Commerce, Labor and Economic Development have already approved the bill.
While I understand why the GOP-led Kansas House of Representatives would be concerned about the thought of cities banning single-use plastics, they believe it would harm businesses and lead to a mismatch of laws around the State of Kansas. These are fair concerns. However, at this point, the Kansas government needs to be more concerned about the environmental and health risks that single-use plastics pose to its residents.
A volunteer clean-up of the Arkansas River found that most of the trash polluting the water were single-use plastics. According to Jessica Mounts, an aquatics ecologist, plastic bags often end up in rivers and since they never completely break down, they can be consumed by the wildlife in the water and those chemicals will eventually end up in our food. This plastic pollution not only affects the environment and our health, it also affects the economic side of things. The Environmental Protection Agency states that it costs some communities about $1 million a year to remove waste that is mainly caused by plastic bags.
The bill came before the Wichita task force could even meet to discuss what action should be taken to limit single-use plastics that harm the environment and health of its residents. The task force is also looking into how this will affect businesses and includes representatives from local businesses across the city. If Kansas lawmakers are truly concerned about how this will affect local businesses, then they should wait to see what comes out of the conversation this task force is starting and listen to them, rather than preemptively shut it down.
Cities should have the right to decide how much plastic pollution they want in their communities. However, if the Kansas government wants to keep the laws consistent throughout the state, then they should work with local governments, especially the ones hit the hardest by this problem, to come up with a way to limit plastic pollution everywhere, instead of preventing them from even trying.
