City councils everywhere today have to address the question of what to do with discarded plastic bags. Collecting them and transporting them to landfills is costing money. Lots of it. So much, in fact, that California calculated the cost at 17 cents per bag. So, they proposed a tax of 17 cents per plastic bag. There is much opposition because citizens feel the cost of shopping will go up. Perhaps councils could look at other examples of how some communities across the world have addressed this problem. Ireland imposed a tax and cut plastic bag usage by 90%. Clearly, popular or not, it works. Taiwan has cut plastic bag usage 80%. But some Australian communities have succeeded followed the voluntary route. The city of Coles Bay led the way with local bakery owner Ben Kearney pushing for a reusable bag that every citizen bought and used. Coles Bay just celebrated their 1st plastic free anniversary and they believe they’ve saved their community from using more than 350000 plastic bags. Ben won the Tasmanian of the Year award for his efforts. Fitzroy Falls is another Australian community that has proudly declared itself plastic bag free. They got local students to do designs and ordered bags that citizens bought through local retailers. Then, 13 city councils got together under the Northern Inland Regional Waste Group and invested in buying 86,000 reusable fabric bags to be given away free to all their citizens. Everyone is proudly using them and they’ve also become virtually plastic bag free. Granted, these are small communities where it is easier to get consensus. Most American city council managers will be surprised to hear that some US communities have also succeeded in ridding themselves of plastic bags. Galena, Alaska, a village of 850 also banned plastic bags. With a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the council handed out 2,000 free canvas bags and phased out plastics in the town's three stores. To date, nearly 40 other Alaskan villages have followed suit, said Bill Stokes of Palmer, Alaska, who helped formulate many of the bans with the state's Department of Environmental Conservation. Most Americans have the impression that reusable bags are expensive. They aren’t. Particularly when imported in bulk. At www.badlani.com/bags/ you will see more than a dozen alternatives that can be got at less than a dollar each.