Commentary and Constructive Criticism

Among other things that Texas ranks low in, the Lone Star State ranks low compared to the rest of the United States in environmental conditions. Thankfully, the City of Austin has begun to address this problem and implement new policies to preserve the environment.

Austin has recently gone "bagless". This means that stores in Austin no longer provide plastic bags, and in some places paper bags are a small fee. Texas Within's blog post about this issue calls for action, backing the movements in Austin and expecting the rest of the state to follow. As a native Austinite, I am proud of the way the city is making movements to not only save money on bags, but protect the environment from harmful production emissions and superfluous waste. I admit it was a bit annoying to remember my reusable bags when going shopping at first. However, I've concluded that the convenience of plastic bags is not worth the waste caused by them. We, in developed suburbia sometimes don't take into consideration the damage we do by making things convenient for ourselves, such as overusing plastic bags which kill wildlife indirectly. Reusable bags have existed for years, but only recently has it been an official public policy that consumers but use them. I think that the government getting involved with this has helped the effectiveness of the movement. I also agree that because of the success in Austin, the policy needs to expand to the rest of the state to continue to affect the environment. Thank you, Nirmal, for your thoughts of the subject and for moving to call the rest of the state to action.