Voters Disapprove of General Assembly Proposed Ban

RALEIGH, N.C. – With the NC Senate giving final approval to a bill that would ban single-use plastic bags at certain areas of North Carolina’s coastline, a new poll released today by the Civitas Institute shows that voters strongly disapprove of such a ban.

According to the live-caller poll of 600 voters, 58 percent disagreed with the General Assembly’s proposal to ban retail and grocery stores from providing plastic bags to shoppers.  Thirty-one percent of voters said they supported the ban; 11 percent said they were not sure.

“North Carolinians recognize this proposal would reduce choices and raise costs for consumers,” said Civitas Institute Executive Director Francis De Luca. “Voters do not want the choice of ‘paper or plastic’ made for them by the government.”

The proposed ban is least popular in the 252 area code – eastern North Carolina – which encompasses the barrier islands, where only 28 percent of voters said they supported the ban and 62 percent said they were opposed to it.

“It seems even the voters of the affected region, and supposedly helped by this bill, don’t want it passed,” added De Luca. “It makes one wonder just why this bill has passed the General Assembly.”

Full text of questions:

Would you support or oppose a law banning retail and grocery stores from providing plastic bags to shoppers?

Support – 31%
Oppose – 58%
Not Sure – 11%

The study of 600 registered voters was conducted June 15-18, 2009 by Tel Opinion Research of Alexandria, Virginia.  All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of registered voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters we interviewed had to have voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008.

The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4% of the “True Values.” True Values refer to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Lawmakers have checked out an experimental ban on plastic bags on North Carolina’s barrier islands, and they are sold on the idea.

The Senate agreed 44-2 to Monday night to House changes to a bill pushed by Senate leader Marc Basnight of Dare County designed to preserve environment and protect wildlife. The measure now goes to Gov. Beverly Perdue for her signature.

The bill only would apply to large stores on islands or peninsulas in Dare, Currituck and Hyde counties. It would require stores to use paper bags or have their customers bring in reusable bags.

Supporters have said the Outer Banks attract millions of tourists annually in part because they’re clean. They also say the bags can be swallowed by turtles that choke on them.

Winston-Salem Journal Editorial

Plastic bottles will soon be banned from North Carolina landfills and benefits will accrue in both environmental and economic terms.

Four years ago, legislators banned the sending of plastic-bottle waste to landfills after Oct. 1, 2009. The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources will soon begin working with local landfills and recycling programs to implement the law.

The most obvious benefit of the law is environmental. Americans use more than 14.4 million tons of plastic bottles every year and most of it gets thrown away, according to a plastics museum in Massachusetts. That plastic will sit in the landfills for centuries without decomposing.

That’s not just an environmental problem; it’s a financial one, too. Landfills are very expensive to operate and they are more expensive to build. Across North Carolina, urban areas are struggling with the question of what to do with their garbage. Keeping the state’s share of plastic bottles out of landfills is part of the answer.

Dozens of Web sites recommend an entertaining array of ideas for the personal recycling of plastic bottles, mostly soda bottles. The creative among us can fashion coffee makers, bird feeders and dolls from bottles.
CNN reported earlier this year that a man was building a 60-foot catamaran out of plastic bottles and planned to sail it to Australia.

But there may be an easier and more profitable action that North Carolinians can take with their used plastic bottles: Drop them in a recycling bin.

Most plastic bottles contain polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, an easily recyclable plastic that is in high commercial demand around the world. Only aluminum cans fetch a higher price as a recyclable product.

Manufacturers prefer recycled PET because it is less expensive than newly produced PET. It uses less energy to recycle than to produce originally, too, and that helps businesses improve their environmental standing.
Once recycled, PET is used in a wide variety of products that are manufactured all over the world. Much of the synthetic carpet produced in the United States today is made of recycled PET. Kayaks, yo-yos, mittens and polyester fabrics are just a few of the many other products.

With demand for PET so high that manufacturers worldwide are begging for it, it is foolish to throw the product away – especially when it creates an expensive environmental problem as trash.

North Carolina will be the first state in the Southeast to ban plastic bottles from landfills, but this will be a hard law to enforce if North Carolinians don’t cooperate.

It will take so little effort to comply with the new law: We need only to separate our recyclable products from our trash and put them in the appropriate bins.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – A North Carolina legislator wants to ban plastic shopping bags in counties along the Outer Banks, saying they are a trashy eyesore when blowing along beaches.

The Charlotte Observer reported Wednesday that the ban is a pilot program being pushed by state Senate leader Marc Basnight, D-Dare. Basnight wants shoppers in Dare, Currituck and Hyde counties to be given bags made of 100 percent recycled paper.

Basnight says he began using paper bags for takeout orders last week in his Nags Head restaurant. The senator said bags that get out of trash cans pollute the beauty that Outer Banks businesses are promoting to tourists.