As editor of Plastic bag bans and taxes remain hot issues. Five U.S. communities have approved bans so far this year. And the state of Oregon could be next.
The Oregon legislature is considering a bill that would ban plastic bags. The industry is fighting back, and now residents are hearing radio ads urging legislators to reject the bill.
Plastics News staff reporter Mike Verespej wrote last month about the pro-bag effort, spearheaded by major bag maker Hilex Poly Co. LLC.
The company created a website -- www.bagthebanoregon.com -- in addition to bankrolling radio and newspaper ads, and submitting editorial page columns to newspapers around the state.
I thought it would be interesting to share the radio ads with Plastics Blog readers, so here's a link to the "bagthebanoregon" multimedia page with the latest spots.
To summarize, the ads stress pretty strongly that if the ban passes, grocery prices would go up -- not a popular consequence in Oregon's troubled economy.
The ads also touch on some other hot buttons likely to appeal to some voters: Doesn't the legislature have more important issues to deal with? A ban would threaten U.S. jobs -- they even call them "green jobs." Reusable bags aren't as clean as single-use bags.
These are arguments that we'll likely see repeated elsewhere around the country, anywhere that a serious bag ban proposal surfaces.
The economic angle has been successful before -- voters aren't likely to support proposals that hit them in the pocketbook. Will that strategy work in Oregon?