Last night, at the Green Cambridge meeting, I heard that efforts are underway in the Cambridge City Council to ban plastic bags in the city. Some important details are still to be determined including whether there will be an outright ban on bags or only a fee on them as a disincentive to their continued use, and should this apply to retail establishments of all sizes, or only the larger of them. Deciding those should only take another two years.
I say this not out of spite. In my first year on the City Council, I went to a meeting on banning plastic bags where city staff explained all the reasons why a ban didn't make any sense. That year was 2008. Five years later, we're only a couple of thorny decisions away from seeing this turn into reality.
As my former colleague Ken Reeves used to remark, the wheels of government do turn slowly.