As limited as it is, good on San Fran. I lived in Asia until recently and plastic bag use was even worse than the west. I caught the tail end of a typhoon while at a beach resort - the next day the sand couldn't be seen for thousands of plastic bags washed up from the oceans.

It was a site to break your heart.

As for Australian, they are the country almost the worst affected by global warming and they are also one of the worst advised.

On one level their government has a habit to follow the Bush line and on the other the electorate has widely swallowed a great deal of global warming denial.

I wonder what will come first - getting its green act together - or it actually raining in Sydney.

As limited as it is, good on San Fran. I lived in Asia until recently and plastic bag use was even worse than the west. I caught the tail end of a typhoon while at a beach resort - the next day the sand couldn't be seen for thousands of plastic bags washed up from the oceans.

It was a site to break your heart.

As for Australian, they are the country almost the worst affected by global warming and they are also one of the worst advised.

On one level their government has a habit to follow the Bush line and on the other the electorate has widely swallowed a great deal of global warming denial.

I wonder what will come first - getting its green act together - or it actually raining in Sydney.

re: biodegradable bags... SF has curbside organics collection (via a green bin) which sends household food scraps, etc to an industrial composter. the compostable bags should break down fine in there, if people can remember to do it.

(source: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/28/MNGDROT5QN1.DTL )

i actually think that shop owners should pass on the costs of the more expensive biodegradable bags to consumers.... it's amazing how a small bag tax (5cents) will change behaviour.

but what's going to happen to the small corner store that can still presumably give out plastic bags? thoughts?

Sweet. In Taiwan the plastic bags aren't banned, but consumers are charged extra for them. They're still ubiquitous though – food vendors even use small plastic bags to store your soup to go.

This is actually something good coming from San Franciso.

But don't break an arm patting your liberal selfs on the backside, there'll still be bag litter all over your nice feel good town. What about those thousands of small stores and malls using plastic still???

Wow, someone has an attitude problem...

Banning shopping bags is the right step into right the direction.

Every City should follow the lead of San Francisco.
There is so much hype, talk and very little action to save our environment.
How about plastic bottles, coffee cups and stolen shopping carts, just to name a few???
cheers Gisela
Toronto Canada
http://abandonedshoppingcarts.blogspot.com/

Finally one US city decides to ban plastic bags!
All we need to do in this country, is get people used to bringing their own bags (it only takes 2 weeks to make something a habit).
The most effective way to do this, is charge for the bags, just like it is done in Western European countries.
Go San Fran!

Oh great. I recycle my plastic grocery bags as trash bags. Now I'm expected to buy plastic trash bags. That would be using more not less.

"Oh great. I recycle my plastic grocery bags as trash bags. Now I'm expected to buy plastic trash bags. That would be using more not less."

It's possible that in some cases that will mean more, but that will probably be marginal. I bet that even you got more bags than you could use for trash (especially if you recycle and compost ;).

For the vast majority of cases, it will mean a lot less bags.

For those of you in areas where they are not yet banned, there are many places to recycle them. I am trying to use fewer (i.e. bring cloth bags to the grocery store), but I also make an effort to recycle the bags that end up accumulating in my house. Companies such as Trex Decking use the recycled bags in their products. A much better alternative than being washed up on the beach.

I have lived in Africa on three seperate occasions and it was always noticable when we approached a village, plastic bags everywhere! In the trees and along the sides of the roads, caught in bushes. It is disheartening. We used grass woven hampers most of the time along with the string bags.
I am still using string bags I picked up in Switzerland almost twenty years ago. At least there you have to pay for bags if you forget your own.
That might have consumers re-think the abuse of the plastic bag. Baggers actually put two items in a bag and move on to the next!! It's amazing!

This is great ! I think that every city should ban plastic bags. But yes, there are things to think about. Like what about all the department stores and malls that are still using plastic bags? Some people may not agree but banning them is a terrific idea. Most people take everything for granted and dont realize that plastic bags are harming our environmment.

i carry my own canvas bag and always say no to plastic. even if you recycle, still waste of natural resources. borders is the only store that asks me if i need a bag and i thank them for asking, good job!!

I live in San Francisco, and when this was up for discussion, one argument against gave me pause. It was stated that if one of these compostable bags made it into the plastic bag recycling stream, it could muck up the whole batch. Geez, I thought, that sounds bad!

A supervisor come-back: less than 1% of plastic bags in SF are being recycled. There is no stream to muck up!

I'm thrilled with this. I already see more people bringing bags with them, which is *wonderful*!

A major complaint against the bag ban is that people reuse their plastic bags for garbage liners, their lunch, etc. but I don't think these people realize that plastic bages actually need to be used ELEVEN times before the cost of production is worth it.

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...i live in france...and since not long ago, they dont give out paper or plastic bags anympore in big supermarkets, in the region where i live, instead they gave out for around 35 c ( euros) these big shopping bags, i think they are made out of a type or mixture of plastic, and loads of people use them, they're great because you can keep them for years they're very good, ...instead of using 5 little plastic bags when u go shopping, and polluting.........

Based on factual studies on environmental impact of plastic bags, this ban is another bad idea out of San Francisco.

Germany is the most environmentally conscious nation in the world. Their Federal Office of the Environment did a study that compared 50,000 paper bags to the same number of plastic bags. This study is titled: The report is titled “Comparison of Environmental Compatibility of Paper and Polyethylene Merchandise Bags.” It was issued under the direction of Dr. Wolfgang Plehn. Below is a summary of the results.

Its results show the production of paper bags compared to production of polyethylene bags generates significantly higher environmental stress in the air and waste water.

Comparison of the energy consumption between PE and paper merchandise bags showed a distinct advantage for plastic bags. For paper production, not only are non-renewable energy resources (crude oil) required, but it also uses 2 pounds of wood per pound of paper produced. The disposal of waste PE and paper in garbage incinerators does not produce significantly different emissions.
Plastic bags in dumpsters require much less volume than paper bags.

Comparison of the damage done to the environment from the manufacture of 50,000 paper and plastic bags shows:

1. Total energy consumption to produce paper bags is 1.49 times higher than for plastic bags.

2. Sulfur dioxide emissions to produce paper bags are 2.15 times higher than for plastic bags.

3. Nitrous oxides emissions to produce paper bags are 2.16 times higher than for plastic bags.

4. Carbon monoxide emissions to produce paper bags are 3.0 times higher than for plastic bags.

5. Methane emissions to produce paper bags are 1.93 times higher than for plastic bags.

The report’s conclusion: switching from PE to paper merchandise bags would result in overall higher emissions and ecological disadvantages.
Bags are here to stay. To better understand the major advantages of plastics, let us assume that a law is passed, forcing the conversion of the 1 trillion plastic bags produced per year to paper.

If the paper bags were stacked, that stack would extend 725,000 miles high, more than three times the distance of the earth to the moon (239,000 miles). All that would have to go into landfill. Plastic would be only 55,000 miles high, about 13 times less.

The paper stack would weigh 70 million tons, the plastic stack 7.8 million tons, or nine times less.
To transport this amount of paper from the place of manufacture to its final destination at a landfill would require 4 million semi-trailer trips. For plastic bags, only 700,000 trips. The difference in diesel fuel, road wear and traffic congestion is enormous.

In addition, 140 million tons of wood would have to be transported from the forest to the paper plants. And 17 million acres of trees would have to be destroyed each year.

Comments?

Sure. I'll comment. Don't get caught in the "paper or plastic" dilemma. Use neither. Take your day pack, or several reusable cloth tote bags to do the shopping.

It's not hard. Worked for me the past few decades.

yeah, I'll comment, too, and back up the last. don't get caught in the paper/plastic, blue/red, good/bad dichotomy. solutions require creative thinking, not rehashed dualism.

My observations of my local San Francisco Safeway: Customers aren't bringing bags. They are simply taking paper bags like they used to take plastic bags.

Then again, District 4 where I live is the only district that voted against this law.

why just ban plastic bag? how about those plastic bottles and plastic containers like shampoo, shower gel, cooking oil etc ....? Why can't those company just build a vending machine for stuff like shampoo and shower gel so that people can just bring the container to refill? This can save billions of ton of plastic containers yearly being landfill. Hotel should also install refillable shapoo or shower gel container in the shower room instead of giving container for customer.

"don't get caught in the paper/plastic, blue/red, good/bad dichotomy. solutions require creative thinking, not rehashed dualism."

Actually, it's irresponsible to NOT pay attention to the facts about plastic bags.

The enviromental arguments against plastic just don't stand up when you look at actual facts. What you should avoid is just assuming that plastic bags are evil, and repeating the same rhetoric over and over. Are reusable bags better? Sure. But there will always be a need for plastic shopping bags. Suppose you buy more groceries than your reusable bag can handle. Most people believe that paper is a better alternative than plastic for this kind of disposable bag. And they are dead wrong.

It is also somewhat unclear what the the main concern of plastic bags is. Litter? Oil use? Trash? Pollution? Low recycling rates? Let's look at them all.

LITTER: Products don't litter themselves; they end up as litter because PEOPLE aren't disposing of them properly. Focus on the cause of the problem, not the result, and educate the public about proper disposal. Studies have also shown that most litter by weight isn't plastic, but things like cigarette butts and paper products.

OIL: Plastic is created from byproducts of refining, not from raw crude oil. These byproducts will exist whether converted into plastic or not. No one is importing oil for the sole purpose of making plastic. And only around 3% of the world's oil is used to make ALL plastics. The vast majority (around 95%) is used for fuel. Speaking of fuel, manufacturing, transporting, and recycling paper uses much more energy than plastic. So banning plastic bags does little to alleviate oil use.

TRASH: Do lots of plastic bags end up in landfills? Sure they do. As do most paper bags. Landfills are also protected from conditions that allow for anything to biodegrade, including paper. It is estimated that paper (bags, newspaper, etc) makes up around 40% of the volume of landfills.

POLLUTION: Manufacturing ANYTHING creates some level of pollution, but comparing plastic and paper, paper is far worse. Look it up.

LOW RECYCLE RATES: Is the plastic product to blame for this too? Active recycling programs have had great success in recycling bags. For these recycling programs to succeed, they must be promoted and supported by cities and communities. AND they must be able to produce enough recycled plastic to supply the industries that use the recycled plastic. Banning bags certainly doesn't promote recycling.

Compostable and biodegradable plastic bags are a good idea, but the two terms mean two different things and are not interchangeable. Composting is a method of biodegradation. Compostable bags are generally a starch based product (PLA) that is designed to break down in the conditions found in municipal composting facilities, and are not recyclable - if these bags get into the recycling stream, they can contaminate it. They also begin breaking down when exposed to heat or sunlight. Biodegradable bags will usually break down wherever there are other things decomposing. Unlike compostable bags, they don't need high heat or oxygen to break down. So even in a landfill they will deteriorate. AND they can be easily recycled.

Should we reduce use of packaging? Sure. Should it be eliminated altogether? Not so easy. Next time you go shopping, actually evaluate the plastic (other than the grocery bag) in your cart. Cereal boxes with plastic bags inside. Meat is packed in plastic, plastic coatings line the insides of cans, plastic bottles for water and juice, plastic vitamin bottles, plastic bakery and produce bags… the list goes on. Products have to be packaged in something.

There are better solutions than carrying bags in car. You don't need bags at all. See http://www.autocarts.net for a clever alternative to bags. This is the best solution to the problem.