At the urging of the local environmental community, the Seattle City Council is considering a ban on plastic shopping bags based on a ban approved this year in Bellingham.
No ordinance has been introduced yet, but council members have been reaching out to grocers, retailers and even the city's food banks to gain support and avoid some of the controversies that doomed a 2008 city effort to charge a 20-cent fee for paper and plastic bags.
What's changed over the past three years? Environmentalists say the evidence is stronger than ever that the plastic checkout bags clog landfills, strangle shorebirds and marine life, and break down into smaller and smaller bits without ever decomposing.
"This is about Puget Sound wildlife and the harmful effects of plastic bags in the environment," said Dan Kohler, regional director of Environment Washington, which has joined forces with People for Puget Sound, the Sierra Club and the Surfrider Foundation in calling on Seattle to ban plastic bags.
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