Eugene City Council is meeting to decide whether or not to ban the plastic bag.

With communities across the US in particular aiming to become more environmentally-friendly, many are turning away from plastic bags.

One such area which is seriously considering banning plastic bags is Eugene, with the City Council meeting on September 17th to discuss the problem.
A public hearing will delve into the views of residents, the majority of which are in support of the idea.

There has been much debate in the city, according to the Eugene Daily News, with some locals preferring to ban single-use plastic bags in checkouts and others wanting larger stores and supermarkets to take the first steps.

Nearby Portland prohibited plastic bag distribution in supermarkets with $2 million or more gross sales, or other sites with at least 10,000 square feet of space, in order to drastically reduce the amount of rubbish heading to landfill.

In a message to Portland Online, Mayor Sam Adams said: "Single-use plastic checkout bags are an eyesore, getting into our waterways and our storm drains.

"Plastic bags are a nuisance, jamming up recycling facility machines and costing those facilities tens of thousands of dollars a month in maintenance and labour to fix the mess."

Elsewhere in Corvallis, the city also banned single-use plastic bags, however in July an amendment was made requiring businesses to impose a very small charge on paper bags, in a bid to motivate shoppers to use more reusable shopping bags.

The city of Eugene is currently attempting to reduce its environmental impacts, most notably cutting down on its marine littering.

Sarah Higginbotham, director of the Environment Oregon Research & Policy Center, told the newspaper that the city estimates that the public uses "67 million plastic bags a year".

She added: "A bag ban in Eugene will allow the city to stand up for protecting Oregon's coasts and the Pacific Ocean," before claiming that "plastic is the most common type of marine debris worldwide, and comprises up to 90 per cent of floating marine debris".