On March 30, 2016 Governor Scott Walker signed a bill into law that prohibits plastic bag bans.
Act 302 prevents cities, villages, towns and counties from enacting or enforcing ordinances or resolutions regulating the use, disposition or sale of auxiliary containers, which include plastic bags and styrofoam take-out containers. The law also prohibits fees, charges or surcharges enforced through cities and counties on auxiliary containers. Essentially, Act 302 bans bans and further strips away power from local governments to favor the state and "big business."
However, this law does not mean that the fight to ban plastic bags has been lost! Here are some of our tips for banning the bag in your community:
Choose reusable.
Just because municipalities and other local governments cannot ban plastic bags doesn't mean that you can't! Make the shift yourself from plastic to reusable bags and "ban the bag" in your household!
Create a team in your community.
Meet with your friends, family and neighbors and encourage them to make the shift to reusable bags as well. There's strength in numbers! Together, your local team can meet with managers at the stores you frequent and can request for changes in store policy.
Advocate for your favorite stores to make the switch.
Individual businesses can still choose to stop providing plastic bags to customers - whether that's by creating a fee per plastic bag, giving a discount to those who use reusable bags or moving away from providing plastic bags at all. Set up meetings with store managers to see what kind of contracts they might have with plastic bag providers, demonstrate consumer demand by organizing your neighbors to demand for more sustainable options, and work with individual businesses to ban the bag!
Work with others around the state.
There is a small but growing team of Sierra Club members working together to fight plastic bags in Wisconsin. To join the team or for more information, contact Elizabeth Ward at elizabeth.ward@sierraclub.org.
Despite this bill, we should continue to fight to ban the bags in our communities.