ConservingNow Community Change

The Madison Common Council on Tuesday night approved an ordinance requiring residents to take unsoiled plastic bags in for recycling. The ordinance bans throwing clean plastic bags away in the trash, but it allows people to throw away used, soiled plastic bags.

All plastic bags that are clean must be taken in for recycling under the ordinance. This includes all shopping bags, the plastic bags encasing newspapers, dry-cleaning bags and bags for fruit and vegetables.

The city said people use about 75 million plastic bags each year in Madison and that a very small amount are recycled and often end up on streets and roads.

"Most of these (bags) are finding their way into the trash or, worse, they're littering the community. And so that's why we want to try and get a handle on them," said George Dreckmann, recycling coordinator for the city of Madison.

The city wants residents to take clean plastic bags to drop-off locations throughout the city rather than include them in recycling bins because the bags wrap around the sorting equipment at the facility.

Read more here: http://www.channel3000.com/news/19773766/detail.html http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/455126