One city wants to educate its citizens, not ban plastics

Here's a radical idea: a sustainability committee in one California city, concerned about litter and marine debris issues, wants to start a "massive public education" program instead of banning products like plastic bags.

That's the recommendation of the South Lake Tahoe Sustainability Commission, according to this story from the Tahoe Daily Tribune.

Commission Chair Kirstin Cattell told the Daily Tribune's Adam Jensen that the board wants to make a positive impact on the environment.

The panel decided to stress education after also considering two more onerous options: putting a fee on disposable plastic containers, or banning the products.

South Lake Tahoe is aware of the potential legal hurdles of those alternative paths, so it decided to try education instead.

The commission plans to meet March 17 to get public input on the plan.

It will be interesting to see how education works, and whether recycling plays a role.

Recyclers definitely can use more material -- that message came through loud and clear at the Plastics Recycling 2010 conference in Austin, Texas, that I attended.

I hadn't really thought of it this way before, but product bans could be a big problem for recyclers -- they need more material, not less.

Recyclers should play a more vocal role in opposition to product bans. That could raise public awareness of the fact that these products that many people want to ban are, in fact recyclable, and there's a pretty good market for them right now, in North America.

If education fails, you can be sure that there will be pressure in South Lake Tahoe to look at taxes and bans instead. (And there will be continued pressure from Sacramento to ban plastic bags statewide.)