Nine months after the City of Fremantle’s push to ban plastic bags was stonewalled, a renewed push from an old ally has breathed life back into the bid.

Town of East Fremantle councillors last week restarted discussions about introducing a law banning single-use bags, more than a decade after they first agreed to adopt a no plastic bag policy.

The City of Fremantle’s recent attempts to introduce such a law was stonewalled by Parliament for the second time in October last year, after it was first rejected in 2013.

Mayor Jim O’Neill said after their initial discussion more than 10 years ago, a policy was adopted but a local law was not.

He said they were looking forward to working alongside their neighbouring council to finally get the law pushed through.

“Fremantle certainly did not do anything wrong and in fact I think many people were shocked at the result of it being disallowed at the state level,” he said.

“I would not expect that to happen again.

“The Town has less retail outlets than other major centres but hopefully the impact and thinking will be carried across boundaries.

“In an advanced country like Australia we simply can do without them.”

Fremantle mayor Brad Pettitt said they were talking with East Fremantle about jointly progressing a single-use plastic bag local law later this year.

“While it was previously disallowed by the Legislative Council, this was inconsistent with the advice they received from the committee that looked at this legislation, which had no major concerns with it and did not recommend it be disallowed, and against the wishes of the Fremantle community that have clearly supported action in this area,” he said.

 

Source : communitynews.com.au

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