Flagstaff Considers Bag-Free Future

Past the mountains of buried trash at Flagstaff’s Cinder Lake Landfill, 25-foot-high fences stand guard to catch flyaway trash picked up by northern Arizona’s whipping winds. Everything from dog food bags to plastic containers cling to the base of the fences’ nets, but by far the most prevalent items are plastic bags. The city of Flagstaff spent almost $67,000 last year removing windblown trash from the area around the landfill, and project manager Matt Morales estimated that up to 80 percent of the items lofted beyond the landfill’s fences are plastic bags. The possibility of eliminating, or at least greatly reducing, the single-use bags that get caught in trees, coalesce in waterways and blow across streets in and around Flagstaff is motivating a growing coalition of groups hoping to convince the city’s leaders to enact a ban or fee on them. Read more here .