Milwaukee alderman seeks to eliminate plastic bags in Wisconsin

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Milwaukee Alderman Cavalier Johnson is reaching out to state lawmakers in an effort to eliminate plastic bags.

"On my route down here, I stopped counting when I got to 20 plastic bags that were strewn throughout the street, tangled up in fences or stuck in trees," he said.

Recently, Ald. Johnson was a driving force in getting the Common Council to stop restaurants from handing out single-use plastic straws, and now he has his sights set on a possible ban on plastic bags.

"I have wanted to eliminate plastic bags since I got here," he said. "Unfortunately, when I first got elected, I learned that the state government has a prohibition on local governments being able to ban bags. So they, in effect, have a ban on bans for plastic bags."

The alderman issued a statement this week, congratulating the state of Oregon for banning plastic bags. He's asking the state legislature to do the same thing for Wisconsin.