January 19, 2007
San Francisco's Got A Brand New Bag
So here's the deal: over a year ago, the Board of Supes passed a measure that would cut down on the amount of plastic bags supermarkets and other big sized stores hand out to customers. Gotta save the environment. Now, according to that measure, stores were supposed to check in with the Board to let them know how everything was going. They haven't done it. And not only have they not done it, they got the state legislature to give them a few loopholes to not have to do it.
Naturally, everyone is a little upset. Gavin, who supported the measure, said he was deceived. Ross Mirkirami, the one who first proposed the measure, isn't very happy and wants to schedule a hearing. He also managed to get a dig in at the Mayor for not fighting the bill in the state legislature. Peter Larkin, president of the California Grocers Association, however said it's no big deal and that they'll provide a report on how well things are going in a few weeks (it’s so hard to generate reports in the holiday season). As for that measure that was passed in the Assembly that created the loopholes, they had nothing to do with it.
So where does this leave us? Look for posturing followed by hearings and meetings followed shortly by some sort of compromise that the supermarkets will probably wriggle out of. Actually, SFist remembers when some of the supermarkets used to feature paper bags with handles on them. It was perfect because it was paper, so environmentally friendly (and made excellent bags to put recyclables in) but it made it easy to carry, which is why everyone gets plastic bags. For whatever reason, we stopped seeing them shortly after they were introduced. Wouldn't reintroducing those bags be a win-win for everyone? Or is that just too easy?
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Paper bags are actually worse for the environment in terms of atmospheric pollutants (I shouldn't know that, but I do). I like them better, I like the way they hold up and I like the way I can reuse them for recycling, but in the end -- it may not be a better solution. Trader Joe's and Whole Foods still use them (I think they are too expensive for the Safeways of the world, or something.).
Wouldn't a solution be that the city is able to collect the plastic bags at curbside? Lugging them back to the grocery store to be recycled reminds me of having to bring back glass pop bottles to the store as a kid (and yes, I'm old, and from the midwest). That didn't work out very well either. And eventually we had curbside recycling -- of course those glass bottles were probably being reused. Like they do in Mexico.
Oh, don't get me started on the idiocy of all this posturing and hoorah.
Down in the South Bay, the garbage pickup/recycle folks pick up your plastic bags and take care of them as part of the garbage contract.
Waste Management/Green Valley/whoever have been doing this for years. Any reason why San Francisco is so far behind the curve?
I use plastic grocery bags to line my kitchen trash bin in lieu of spending $$ on the kind that come packaged at the store. I pack up the bags I can't use in a big IKEA bag (oh, no! NOT A BIG BOX STORE BAG!) and haul them down to Safeway, which lets you drop off your plastic bags for recycle.
I'd rather I could leave those plastic bags out for our fine recycle folks to handle but for some reason TPTB in San Francisco don't seem to know that such a possibility even exists.
AND FURTHERMORE, (now that I'm wound up) ... the mess I see on the streets is seldom plastic bags flying around. I see blown newspapers, people's snotty facial tissues, teenytiny bags of dog poop (Really!!! What part of the you-must-pick-up-your-dog's-poop don't these people understand?), takeaway coffee cups, flyers for restaurants and clubs, plastic spoons ... Very little of the trash blowing around is plastic bags and if the City would just negotiate "recycle plastic bags" into the garbage contract all this high drama would go away.
But then how would we sell those papers, eh?
Andronico's in inner sunset, while steep prices, has paper bags with handles also. (And just went to 100% cage free eggs!)
I don't see how paper is worse for the environment, but I suppose the argument could be made. I appreciate the effort to increase the amount of recycled trash in SF.
It takes decades if not hundreds of years for plastic to breakdown in landfills. There is no way that paper bags are worse. In Ireland they levied a tax on all plastic bags, and boom, the problem stopped over night. Everybody brings large reusable bags to the supermarket with them, and like everything it takes a little getting used to but people do and it works. 10's of millions of plastic bags a year in one city is crazy.
Wasn't it an article in Wired Magazine a few months back that looked at the energy costs of paper vs. plastic and said plastic is in the end better? Of course, re-suing is better still.
Speaking of paper-bag handles, I love that place Falleti's (by the DMV), but what's up with their paper-bag handles? they seem to be made of twine and i suspect aren't recyclable? Does anyone know?
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It would also be very helpful if more of us consumers would plan ahead when possible and bring our own bags with us to the store. Most stores sell some sort of canvas tote bags (TJ's has them for $1.99). They make it way easier to carry your groceries on the bus or on foot since you can put them over your shoulder.
Then the times that you can't bring your own bag, do what others said above. Use them for trash or recycling. My co-worker collects plastic bags from our other co-workers for picking up her 3 dogs' poop. (I've seen receptacles in various parks where you can contribute your plastic bags.)
forget the paper vs. palstic debate....I think the bigger issue here is the ridiculous overuse of bags, which outside of grocery stores, are usually plastic. Ever buy a box of toothpaste at Walgreens, and have them stick it in its own little bag? ever seen the person in front of you with a handful of several other single item bags from other errands that day blindly excepted that extra bag?
Paper is VASTLY worse for the environment!!! Think about the huge amount of energy that goes into making one paper bag (after the tree killing) vs. a plastic bag -- you have to heat up a ton of pulp, put crap in it, etc. All this spews into the atmosphere and rivers, killing all kinds of animals and polluting our air. Since this isn't an immediately visible first order effect, but people can take pictures of the few bags that DO get out in the environment and happen to choke a duck or something people get all anti-plastic. Plastic is made from oil, OH NO! Think of it this way -- a plastic bag costs $.01 to manufacture so it's impossible for it to contain more than about 1/250 of a gallon of gas. If someone drives to a store (or even took gas-powered MUNI) and thinks they did good by choosing paper they need to be slapped considering all the gas it took to get them there. When recycling the plastic bag you put in a tiny amount of energy and it becomes someone's deck or something. Recycle a paper bag and you heat up a vat of crap (huge amount of energy) and the pollution cycle continues. Plus plastic is a lot stronger, but for whatever reason people think the opposite and ask for quadruple paper bags to take home their jar of Crisco. Probably the same people that think SUVs are safer than cars. BTW, plastic bags degrade just as fast as paper.
It's obvious that Rainbow Grocery hates Earth. (Paper only!)
If people simply took the near zero effort to recycle we wouldn't have this problem. (The bag recycle rate is
This link is incorrectly biased a little towards paper, but supports the "plastic is better" argument (they neglect too much of the energy and consequental airborne and water pollutant factors):
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=535932
the solution at Walgreens or anyplace else is simple. I always just quickly say, "I don't need a bag." A canvas bag folds up and fits inside my purse and it saves me needing a bag just about everywhere: Macy's, grocery stores, etc. The guy at Macy's actually thanked me for not taking a plastic bag.
What hacks me off is the pseudo-liberal dipshits at Rainbow Grocery showing how "environmental" they are by putting things like onions and apples and bananas into those clear plastic bags. Grapes, maybe, but APPLES?? Seriously, people, WTF? Of course, they then go out to the parking lot and climb into their Land Rovers, which is another gripe altogether.
Easy solution....have the local government spend all their time whiling away on picky little issues like this one and all the REAL problems in the city, like the ever increasing murder rate will eliminate all the consumers. Voila, no more need for plastic bags!!!
for some reason I was under the impression that a few years ago several large chains (including Von's, which is owned by Ralph's, which also owns Cala-Bell) had switched to biodegradable plastic bags that break down in landfill in a few weeks.
Judging from the saved bags in my kitchen, this switch has by no means been adopted by all markets and unfortunately, I'm not able to find any internet research that indicates this was ever the case.
however, such bags do exist - although it seems like landfill use isn't as much an issue as the consumption of non-renewable resources like petroleum.
Trader Joe's uses the paper bags with handles (I'm surprised no one brought that up yet) and they also encourage you to BYOB by signing up up for a gift card every time you do so. Not bad for a chain, actually...
Plastic bags were banned in parts of India in 2005: "the ban had been prompted by the indiscriminate use of plastic bags, which blocked sewage and drainage systems during record monsoon rains. Flooding and landslides killed more than 1,000 people in the state."
Paper vs. plastic.Paper means more trees a cut plastic means our trash will be in the ground longer for future garbagologist to dig around in. What a treasure trove that will be.
The grocery store I go to, Real Food on Polk and Broadway, uses the paper bags with the handles. They also give you 10 cents off if you bring your own bag.
suzeqzee wrote: "for some reason I was under the impression that a few years ago several large chains (including Von's, which is owned by Ralph's, which also owns Cala-Bell) had switched to biodegradable plastic bags that break down in landfill in a few weeks."
Biodegradable or compostable bags probably don't break down in a landfill because of low oxygen content. I remember seeing video of an archaeologist (Prof. William Rathje) who found newspapers from 40 years ago that were still readable, and hot dogs that looked good enough to eat. If the bags can be thrown into the green waste bins, that would be ideal, as then the bags would be converted into fertilizer. Care would be required, however, not to put the biodegradable bags into the plastic recycling, as they might cause the recycling process to fail.
The best solution is to get some canvas bags for shopping. You can haul a lot of groceries in such a bag. Thrift stores and garage sales often have canvas bags from trade shows that you can get for almost nothing. And you might even get a cool geeky logo like "Can-metro: Optoelectronics for your GOSE analytics system"
Here's a fairly serious analysis of paper vs. plastic, from the Institute for Lifecycle Environmental Analysis. They found plastic to be the better choice: "There were two critical measures. The first is the total energy used by a bag, which includes both the energy used to manufacture a bag, called process energy, and the energy embodied within physical materials, called feedstock energy. The second measure is the amount of pollutants produced. Using energy and pollutants from all stages of a bag's life, both measures result in favor of plastic bags."
Finally, what REALLY happens to plastic bags that go into a "recycling" bin? Do they turn into new bags, get sent to China, or what?
First off Von's is owned by Safeway, Ralph's is part of the Kroger chain. My problem with this whole issue is that it singles out one industry, grocery stores, that is struggling. What about the plastic bags every other store in the City gives you? Walgreen's this law does not apply to them, why not? If we want to get rid of plastic bags why just single out grocers. This whole issue is about one thing, political grandstanding...
The City of San Francisco should be proud, the state legislation passed because of this requires recycling of bags at all stores in the State, the leadership of Ross and Gavin made it happen. One other little factoid not in the press, as part of the deal the City had to take steps toward curb side recycling of bags, which as of now they have not done. But only evil businesses have to comply with agreements in San Francisco.
Finally, what REALLY happens to plastic bags that go into a "recycling" bin? Do they turn into new bags, get sent to China, or what?
Information about plastic bag recycling from the folks at www.plasticbagrecycling.org (a site from the American Plastics Council and Moore Recycling Associates).
Other folks have other solutions
Or you could knit a carryall
Contracts with garbage firms mandating plastic bag recycling should specify that the plastic bags left out for recycling can not be shipped off-shore or south and must be recycled, not just slipped back into the landfill.
Leaving plastic bags out for recycle is just the first step. Recycling doesn't help much without a viable market for the resultant recycled products. Buy recycled products.
Too bad you don't have A&P's there.
They sell for 99 cents some really nifty reusable bags.
Check them out at Http://www.aptea.com
Plastic is a pain on the environment. Only reusable bags can reduce the environmental threat they cause.
Have you ever driven past a paper mill? The smell alone will give you a pretty good clue that it's not environmentally friendly.
I don't understand the logic behind favoring paper. Compare how many pounds of grocieries can be carried per pound of bag. You will find out that it takes a lot less plastic to get the job done than a paper (tree based) bag.
Plastic is far easier to recycle from a manufacturing standpoint. Just wash, reheat and re-form.
In the SF world, pictures, emotions, and sensationalism rule the day. Hey SF, use some logic once in a while and actually crank out the numbers. Sheesh!
What about those nifty compostable bags I keep hearing about? They must be more expensive, but I can't imagine they'd be too too much more than the tax they were talking about. I don't know anything about they pollution from production, but if it was better than paper, golly wouldn't they be great? They're sturdier than traditional plastic, more re-usable, and a great way to hold the compost in the kitchen (and SF does collect composet, right?)
I have always used paper bags and I was wondering how long it would be before the plastic bag issue would come up. The problem with paper was getting it to stay open to put waste in. So I invented a plastic rim called (StaySert) and got a patent on it. It fits into the top of a standard size grocery bag. It stabalize's the bag,it can be placed in a trash can or use free standind. My local grocery store use
s them free standing in all there check out counter's for there trash etc. Thank You. Cliff
I lived in Ireland twice in my life and yes the bring-your-own-bag system worked just fine, but that was in my youth. I am now a disabled senior citizen who can physically shop only monthly. Bringing my own bags and then loading them to the gills with heavy merchandise is more than I can manage. And, no, I'm afraid I have no family or neighbors to help. Paper bags with handles lightly loaded are a Godsent for folks like me, even if we must use a few extra bags to lighten the load; so are any types of plastics. But please don't ask us in our older years to carry bags to the stores when we can barely carry ourselves and to load them to the top when the lightest weight is a struggle up even a few stairs. Please think of us too. And no we don't have lots of extra money, when medicine is so expensive. I recycle what I can to do my part, but please consider us too.
I lived in Ireland twice in my life and yes the bring-your-own-bag system worked just fine, but that was in my youth. I am now a disabled senior citizen who can physically shop only monthly. Bringing my own bags and then loading them to the gills with heavy merchandise is more than I can manage. And, no, I'm afraid I have no family or neighbors to help. Paper bags with handles lightly loaded are a Godsent for folks like me, even if we must use a few extra bags to lighten the load; so are any types of plastics. But please don't ask us in our older years to carry bags to the stores when we can barely carry ourselves and to load them to the top when the lightest weight is a struggle up even a few stairs. Please think of us too. And no we don't have lots of extra money, when medicine is so expensive. I recycle what I can to do my part, but please consider us too.