A proposal to ban single-use plastic shopping bags in Cheyenne stores has been sent to the city attorney for review, according to a supporter of the measure.

Kelly Wright of the Sustainable Shopping Initiative says once the city attorney completes his review, the proposal, along with any recommended changes is expected to be introduced to the city council.

Wright says if it becomes law, the ordinance would eventually do away with the plastic bags in favor of reusable shopping bags or paper shopping bags made of recycled paper. Wright says stores would charge a fee to customers for the reusable or recycled bags.

She says the exact amount of the fee remains to be determined, but would probably be somewhere between 10 and 30 cents. The stores would keep the money collected by the fees to offset the cost of providing environmentally-friendly bags.

Wright says its also important to understand that the charge for the bags is a fee and not some kind of tax,

Wright says she has been working with City Councilman Bryan Cook and others on the proposal.

If the measure does become law, Wright says there would be a transition period of a year or so between city council approval of the measure and when it would actually take effect. Wright says the measure is important because plastic from shopping bags is polluting the ocean as well as working its way into the human food supply. She says plastic from Wyoming eventually makes its way to the Atlantic and Pacific oceans as well as the Gulf of Mexico

She says another problem is that the bags break down into tiny particles, which are consumed by cattle and eventually find their way into the bodies of human beings. Wright says nobody really knows what the medical impacts on people of consuming the plastic might be.

Wright appeared on the ''Weekend in Wyoming" program on Saturday, Feb. 1. You can hear her interview in the audio attached to this article

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