(SOUTH SIOUX CITY, NE) Plastic bags, you probably use them a lot. But one South Sioux City dairy farmer says, enough is enough. He proposed a plastic bag ban to the city council Monday night. But why?
We live in a world, addicted to plastic.
Plastic bottles, utensils, cups, containers, you get the idea. Oh yea, and plastic bags. But one south Sioux City man wants to see these banned forever.
"We just need to step up, the Midwest; we've got the heart of the food basket here. We need to take care of it," says Rick Bousquet, a local dairy farmer.
He says, south Sioux City has a big problem on its hands.
"They're everywhere, they're in the trees, they're in the hay, and they're in the cornfields. It's gotten to the point, where something needs to be done," he says.
And those plastic bags end up on his property all the time.
"Bousquet says some of his smaller cattle end up eating the bags, but because they can't digest them, they end up dying. He says he's lost 5 so far."
A 5,000 dollar hit to his bottom line. According to www.cleanair.org, American's use approximately 1 billion shopping bags a year, creating 300,000 tons of landfill waste. Bousquet says it would not only benefit his cattle, but the environment as well.
That's because, plastic bags don't bio-degrade. Instead, they break down into smaller pieces and contaminate water and soil... a costly clean-up for the city.
"It's going to reduce landfill; it's going to all around be better. If you drive across the community, even over in Woodbury County, Dakota County, these bags are everywhere. They're in our streams in our rivers," he says.
And he's not alone. Many cities in the U.S. have banned plastic bags in states like California, Oregon, Texas and Colorado.
Hleigh@siouxlandnews.com
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