Environmental Group Encourages Village to Use Recycleable Bags

The environmental group, Go Green Vernon Hills & Lincolnshire, led by Vernon Hills resident Seema Keshav, is submitting a petition to the Vernon Hills Village Board to implement a single-use bag fee. Keshav is assisted by Vernon Hills environmental activists Jamie Epstein and John Katz-Mariani. A proposed fee of 20 cents per bag would provide shoppers with an incentive to bring their own reusable bags to Vernon Hills stores in order to reduce pollution caused by the production and use of both plastic and paper bags.

Other local municipalities have enacted laws to reduce single-use bags. Evanston’s plastic bag ban went into effect on August 1. The ordinance also features a 10-cent tax on all other types of single-use bags. Chicago has had a plastic bag tax since 2017. In Oak Park, retail stores of 5000 square feet or greater are required to charge customers 10 cents for each single-use plastic or paper bag.

“Single-use plastics are becoming a growing health concern,” says Keshav. “Recent studies suggest that people ingest 5 grams of plastic –about the amount in a credit card--every week. Other studies have found microplastics in human blood, as well as in human lungs and hearts. Single-use plastic bags also litter our environment. They blow into tree branches, clog our sewer drains and are mistaken for food by marine animals. Switching from single-use bags to reusable bags is the simplest thing we can do to make a difference. A fee on single-use bags will deter people from using them and, hopefully, will create habits of reuse in other areas as well.”

“I have always been proud to live in the Village of Vernon Hills,” says Epstein. “The trustees show that this village is a leader in Lake County. They take the necessary steps to show the county and the state how to do the right thing. I hope that they continue to do so and pass legislation that helps reduce the use of single use bags in our beautiful village.”

If you are a Vernon Hills resident and wish to sign the petition, go to https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/vernon-hills-plastic-bag-ban-petition?source=direct_link&.