The city should build on existing plastic-bag recycling efforts, instead of enacting an intrusive and ineffective bag ban that takes money from our wallets, hurts our local merchants and lowers Kirkland’s tax revenue when people shop elsewhere.

The proposed ordinance purports to ban “single use” plastic bags, but we know from everyday experience this is a misnomer. We reuse plastic bags for a variety of other purposes  like taking lunches to work, as trash can liners and for cleaning up after our pets every day. If these plastic bags are no longer available, we’ll be forced to purchase other more expensive plastic bags off-the-shelf for these purposes.

This isn’t the time to increase grocery bills. The elderly, disabled, the poor and working people – heck, everyone – we’re all counting every penny. I also count on carrying several bags at once waiting for the bus in the rain so I don’t have to make multiple trips; you can’t do that with paper bags and I don’t preplan every purchase or have enough reusable bags with me.

Kirkland is a small city and this costly ordinance puts the city’s merchants (and the city’s coffers) at a disadvantage with competitors just over the city boundaries, in terms of price and convenience. As others have said here, as a matter of principle, many will choose to shop in Redmond, Bellevue and anywhere else that believes citizens possess good sense and care about protecting the environment.

City staff and some Council members argue this proposal is an effort to protect the environment. This space is too small to consider all the other measures that would result in far more significant positive impacts. So where does our City Council plan to stop regulating? A better solution would be to continue to educate the public about the importance of recycling and promote reusable bags.

Just please don’t send me another cheap and ugly city of Kirkland tote bag paid for with our taxes. Those bags have environmental impacts, too.

Margie Hanson, Kirkland