Alaska towns ban plastic bags, Styrofoam vessels

Alaska's largest rural town has voted to ban plastic bags and Styrofoam takeout containers, hoping to put an end to the thousands of “white birds” that sweep across the state’s tundra on any given day. Restaurants and grocery stores targeted by the ban will offer reusable bags and recyclable plastic, Kyle Hopkins reports for the Anchorage Daily News. (Wilson Naneng photo)

Advocates of the ban in Bethel (pop. 5,700) say education about plastic waste has earned the support of many since a first attempt was overturned eight years ago. The waste often ends up on the ocean floor and last spring, Hopkins writes, “the spongy tundra around the dump looked like a tossed-plastic salad.” The local Alaska Commercial Co. in Bethel estimates that the average 1,700 sales a day use two bags each.

Bethel is the latest Alaska town to ban plastic bags, joining other remote villages like Hooper Bay. The ban will take effect in September 2010, but the opposition argues that the environmental benefits are still unclear and the ban will drive up the cost of groceries. But advocates, like Bethel’s recycling center manager David Stovner, are simply fed up with the tundra covered in plastic snow. "It looks like white geese out there. Eight million of them," he said. (Read more)