Environmental Sustainability at a Municipal Level

George Larach
9/17/18
GPHC 11
Environmental Sustainability at a Municipal Level
If I was a mayor of a city, one of the policies I would enact in regards to environmental sustainability would be to ban plastic bags in all stores within municipal limits. Plastic bags are disposable, take between 10-1,000 years to decompose, and are a serious hazard to wildlife. Banning plastic bags from stores would mean that the production of said bags would decrease, and consumers would bring their own reusable bags to carry their groceries. To provide an incentive to switch to electric/renewable energy, I would instate a policy that requires parking lots that are of a certain size to include charging stations for electric vehicles. This would convince people to switch because they’ll see the abundance of charging stations throughout the city, and that would mean owning an electric vehicle would be more convenient. I would also improve accessibility to public transportation by expanding the variety of methods of transportation, eg. buses, subways, and trains. They would interconnect well, and theoretically, you should be able to get around without the need of a car, rather, you’d be using the examples listed above. No area should be only accessible by car. Using public transportation would drastically decrease carbon emissions and reduce environmental impacts.   

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