Ballarat City Council has voted 5-4 against supporting a state-wide ban on plastics bags at its ordinary meeting on Wednesday night,
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Cr Belinda Coates presented a notice of motion that proposed to write to the state government and express council’s support for a ban.
A report on the state parliamentary inquiry into banning plastic bags is soon to be released and a bill is being considered by the state government.
More than four billion plastic bags end up in landfill in Australia every year, with 150 million entering the waterways.
Cr Grant Tillett voted against the ban and said if plastic supermarket bags were banned, plastic food packaging would also have to be outlawed.
“I don't want anybody to misinterpret my motives in relation to this,” he said.
“There is a motion before parliament in relation to plastic bags – they have the power.”
Crs Ben Taylor, Jim Rinaldi, Daniel Moloney and Samantha McIntosh backed Cr Tillett’s opposition and voted against the motion.
Cr Taylor said he supported the idea of a ban in principle but there was not enough information about the implications of a ban.
“What is the outcome of the (state government) bill?” he said.
“Have we read the outcome of the bill? Does the bill go far enough? That is my question.”
Cr Coates said some councillors supported the principle of banning plastic bags, but were not support it for weaker reasons.
“There could be an argument, ‘why not wait for the (state government) inquiry’,” she said
“That is an excuse, other states have already done it.
“Waste management is our biggest cost service, it is a huge cost, that is in terms of landfill management and litter management across the city.
Two petitions with more than 20,000 signatures between them were presented to the state parliament on Wednesday.
The Project host Waleed Aly has campaigned to make Victoria, Western Australia and New South Wales plastic bag free and received more than 135,000 signatures on a petition.
A second motion from Cr Taylor to request more information from the government about its proposed plastic bag ban was also voted against.
Cr Mark Harris said the second proposal was nonsense.
“I can't see why we would literally have council officers going through what is public information,” he said.
Cr Coates also said it would be a waste of staff time.
“If councillors are that interested why don't they read the briefing paper, there is one on there” she said.