Why Bozeman needs a bag ban

For the 56,123 people in Bozeman, MT, a typical year with a plastic bag ban would result in:

• 16,612,408 fewer single-use plastic bags that won’t pollute our environment.

• Those bags would stretch 2,884 miles laid side to side.

• Eliminating those bags would save the 83,727 gallons of oil needed to produce them.

Plastic bags are free to consumers but are costly to municipalities, agriculture, and the environment.

• The fossil carbon required to manufacture 14 plastic bags would fuel a passenger car for 1 mile.

• Plastic bags are largely unrecycled. Multiple investigations using electronic tracking devices have demonstrated that even when plastic bags are collected, they may be diverted to landfills and incinerators.

• Plastic bags placed in recycling bins end up clogging recycling machinery, forcing expensive shut-downs. One recycler has estimated that it cost an additional $9,500 a month in labor to untangle plastic bags from equipment.

• Plastic bags clog sewers, snag in trees, and blow into water bodies, requiring expensive cleanup. 

• According to one study, communities on the west coast are spending more than $520 million each year to combat litter.

• When plastic bags blow or are dumped on grazing land they can be eaten by ruminants such as cattle, causing intestinal impaction, sickness, and death.

  • They can also snag on crops,

• Plastic bag bans are effective. They reduce litter, protect agriculture and the environment, lower municipal clean-up costs, and are easily embraced by consumers.