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While plastic bags in San Francisco aren't really banned -- look no further than Chinatown or any independently-owned liquor store to find a bag of crinkly delight -- San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said "he wants the city bag ban to expand throughout the Bay Area and beyond and that the plastic industry has stalled legislation." (An aside: we fully support the chutzpah of any and all SF supes who want to wield their power outside their districts... and their city.) Mirkarimi goes one step further, saying he wants to introduce an ordinance "to strengthen the city's ban to require that grocers pay a refund to customers who bring in their own canvas bags and to eventually include a ban on paper bags as well." This comes on the heels of Save the Bay revealing the top-ten plastic bag hot spots in the Bay Area.
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While I generally don't support a lot of the crazy ass policies our city government sponsors and pays for, the plastic bag ban does make sense to me.
My wife and I keep cloth/nylon bags in the car and it becomes quite convenient. Sure, paper and plastic bags can be useful to throwing out truly nasty garbage (or dog poop, for example), you end up with enough of them in your kitchen cabinet even if you actively avoid picking the bags up.
Ever notice how many bags are on the streets in SF (especially around chinatown)? It's disgusting.
-mm
but even if you actively avoid
Glad to see that Ross is focusing on the highest priority issues of the day, and of his district.
Agreed. Divisadero traffic is a mess, they have blocked off all crosswalks for three blocks and you can't cross Grove at all.
Just another reason why I shop in Daly City. Plastic bags... OK! Styrofoam products... OK! Lower sales tax rate... hell yea!
This proposal is not very smart. Paper bags are renewable, recyclable and biodegradable. What problem is he trying to solve? How does he expect people to take things home if the forgot their canvas bag?
An the refund is nonsensical. Why should seller pay you for something he is not receiving. Yes, not giving you a bag lowers his cost. So what? A restaurant does not give me a refund if I tell them I don't want water.
If he want to incentivise the use of cloth bags, then user part of the market/store license fee to give each SF household one free cloth bag per year.
While I use canvas bags to do my shopping and I totally agree with the ban on plastic bags, I do like the plastic-like biodegradable bags I get at the grocery store in my 'hood (shout out to Haight Street Market); I use them for both dog poop and composting. If a small Mom & Pop like Haight Street Market can do it, why is it such an issue for large chains to supply them?
Yeah, Ross definitely seems to have his finger on the pulse of District 5, don't you think? I know the plastic bag issue is at the top of MY list of neighborhood plights.
They only go afer large chains because they are a fat, juicy, easy target. Actually requiring small business owners to switch would lead to real opposition.
San Francisco rocks! I'm so happy that a bag ban is in effect and the idea is spreading up and down the west coast and around the world.
I'm hoping for the day it expands to my area here in the Northwest corner of Washington State! In the mean time I started a small scale plastic bag recycling program www.FatBottomBags.com Currently I'm recycling plastic bags for 16 different families and together we've kept nearly 4000 plastic bags out of the wastestream! All of this from my kitchen, where I turn them into reusable bags purses and backpacks.
Maybe you still have a drawer full of plastic bags from before the ban took effect. If you do, check out how you can make them into your own reusable shopping bag http://www.fatbottombags.com/id7.html
Thanks for starting the ball rolling on plastic bag bans in the United States!
Christi Spangler
Recycle Crafter
www.FatBottomBags.com
Silly San Francisco... the ban on plastic bags there has actually done nothing to combat environmental issues. Everyone has just switched to paper bags, not reusables, and paper is far worse from an environmental standpoint. Paper requires far more resources (including oil) to manufacture, transport and recycle than plastic, and also causes many times the air and water pollution.
The San Fran ban was aimed at litter, but since the ban, your plastic bag litter problem has actually increased. This is not because some places can still use plastic, it's because the ban practically eliminated plastic bag recycling in your city. Way to go!
About the biodegradable bags that "knucklehead" mentioned above... those are corn starch based (made from food that could be better used as ... I don't know... food?), and only biodegrade in conditions found at municipal composting facilities. As litter or in a landfill, they just sit there. AND they can't be recycled, but since they look and feel like traditional plastic bags some do get in the recycling stream and contaminate things.
Maybe people in San Francisco are still smoking too much pot to actually think about the consequences of their actions.