Philadelphia Aims to Tackle Plastic Pollution with Proposed Single-use Plastic Bag Ban

PHILADELPHIA, PA (June 20, 2019) On Thursday, June 20th, Philadelphia City Councilman Mark Squilla introduced a bill proposing to ban certain types of single-use plastic bags and placing  $.15 fee on all other bags used in Philadelphia. The intention of this legislation is to reduce litter in Philadelphia and address the global problem of plastic waste. The legislation encourages shoppers to bring their own bags to stores. If passed, Philadelphia will be the largest city in Pennsylvania to enact this type of legislation.  Mayor Kenney is expected to sign it into law.

“Clean Air Council is proud to work with Philadelphia City Councilman Mark Squilla and other members of City Council to ban certain plastic bags and place a fee on all other bags,” said Logan Welde, Clean Air Council Staff Attorney and Director of Legislative Affairs. “Our city’s residents, tourists and commuters use almost one billion single-use plastic and paper bags every year. That is an astonishing amount of waste and this legislation will likely reduce single-bag usage by almost 85%.”

“Single-use bags add to blight to our communities and are a threat to our environment/planet, forcing the city to spend millions of taxpayers’ dollars per year to clean up these bags from our neighborhoods and extract them from our waterways and sewer lines,” said Philadelphia City Council member Mark Squilla. “This money could fund our school system, our parks, or any number of needed programs instead of paying to clean up items that are only used for a few minutes yet last forever.”