is your town concerned with the environment?  

It is not like that in my area yet and I hope it is not like this for a little while because we recycle all our plastic bags anyway by using them for our garbage in the bathroom and when they stop doing this I will have to buy the bags . I don't understand why they say that it is harmful to the environment to use plastic bags but they sell them in the stores for your bathroom and for under the garbage in the kitchen sinks . Many of the plastic bags I have are given to a friend who uses them to sell her potatoes , fruits and vegetables as she sells much of what she grows and another friend has a farm and she sells her eggs and uses these plastic bags to put the eggs in so they don't get broke . When they switch to paper bags or boxes , we will end up having to pay for plastic bags , the same plastic bags that they now say is dangerous to the environment . It doesn't make sence that if it is that dangerous that they should be allowed to sell them .

I do understand the part about recycling for our environment but don't understand why it can be safe in one area and not in another like in this case where they would sell them but not use them in stores .

They have started with the material blue bags which we can buy and I do like these bags because they are stronger and will hold more but I still would like to be able to use the plastic bags for my garbage . They can't get rid of plastic completely until they come up with another way for us to get rid of our garbage .

I'm thankful too because you are concerned with the environment. With what you have shared, you do care, and I'm happy we are in the same boat. My university is very much involved in environmental care...however, I feel that we still need to do more. We are actually banning the use of styropors in campus; soon we will also ban the use of plastics. This move should be duplicated everywhere...I mean the use of paper bags instead of plastics. We all know that plastics are non-biodegradable, although there are already inventions of biodegradable ones. In fact, our school is experimenting on making plastics made from potato peelings or other biodegradable materials. We are also 100% recycling our wastes, and are engaged in tree planting. Our city does not collect trash from our school because we are managing our own trash. Our city of course has a program on environmental preservation, but we need to educate our people for it to succeed. By the way today is International Coastal Clean-Up Day and I heard volunteers from all over are cleaning up our coasts today. Hope we can sustain the effort and we should educate our people not to throw their litters everywhere. Just like you, I am also very concerned about our environment.

i would like to believe that this is so. because our town is into garbage segragation, we have a clean and green project and all the things... well we just need to do more stuff for this too. hehe

There is talk of using paper bags again here where I live. I get so tired of seeing the plastic bags hanging in trees everywhere also. Used to when my husband would go to the grocery store he would ask for paper and they would have to hunt it down and then it got to where they didn't have it. He was at Wal Mart the other day and complained about the plastic bags and ask when they were going to go to paper, I can't ever remember Wal Mart using paper, and he was told when they are forced to use paper bags unless people brought their own bags they would be charged for the paper bags!!!

It's good to hear that people care, even if not in my country.
Around here, nobody seems to care. A regulation similar to the one you mentioned is applying here, but only because it's imposed by the European Union. And they only ban plastic bags in stores and supermarkets. In the public markets, if you buy vegetables, or if you buy the bread from the baker, they still give you free plastic bags.
I have started bringing my own bag when I buy my daily bread. The official statistics say that in Romania the average usage of a plastic bag is 20 minutes. I m proud to say that this week, two of my plastic bags were used 3 times more than the average, and I'll use them some more!

This time our city is Green City-Clean City. only some area is not clean.

No not really, the supermarkets still give me loads of bags, yet I have my own bag that I take shopping with me. I have to keep telling them that I do not need a bag thank you! Mind you saying that they do have a plastic carrier bag recyling bin so that kind of makes up for it because I just take my bags there each week.

Quite. Now in my country, on Wednesdays, everybody who goes grocery shopping must bring their own bag. If they don't have one, they would have to pay for the plastic bag. Each plastic bag is $1, and all the money collected goes to orphanages and the old folks home.

I think this method is very useful, but I think we should just voluntarily bring our own bags. The earth is in MAJOR crisis now. Global warming is very serious. As my country is an island, when the sea level rises, the island will also sink.

I hope the Bring your own bag day would be everyday. Earth is our home. We must protect it.

We have laws that are supposed to protect our environment. But the problem is here is the eforcement. Many people in our area just throw their garbage almost anywhere. Sad to note that the officials are only good at the start. Later on they tend to lax and the problem continues. I hope one day people will realize the effect. That is why, we see a lot of flooding in our area simply because of lack of discipline.

Oh well that is a big step your town did, but they say it is better to use recyclable ecological bags than paper bags, because you need trees to produce paper bags, so now most people are making an effort to use eco bags instead, but the thing your town did to eliminate plastic is something to applaud about.