Olympia Passes Ban on Plastic Bags

The Washington state city joins other nearby jurisdictions in enacting the prohibition.

October 11, 2013

OLYMPIA, Wash. – This week, the Olympia City Council approved a ban on plastic, single use bags, which would go into effect July 1, The Olympian reports. With Olympia now on board with a ban, only two other Thurston County-area localities would permit plastic bags. Unincorporated Thurston County and Tumwater have enacted similar bans.

The ban applies to all retailers. Shoppers will need to bring reusable bags of their own or purchase paper bags at a nickel a piece, with retailers keeping the entire 5 cents. The t-shirt type plastic bags are the ones specifically banned, with allowances made for doggie bags, dry cleaning bags, meat/produce bags, newspaper bags and thicker plastic bags, such as those given out by department stores.

With Thurston County using around 90 million bags per year, “there’s just too many of them,” said Councilman Nathaniel Jones. Councilman Steve Langer said the ban would help him use fewer plastic bags. “I will not be using more T-shirt bags, and I hope that we can move this on because it’s really late,” said Langer.

The area has been talking about such a ban for a few years over concern that most end up in a landfill or as litter. Lately, plastic bag bans or fees have been cropping up all across the country.

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