Plastic bags make a big, persistent mess when they get left where they don't belong or get trashed in a landfill. Thankfully, we're learning to stay away from them (and designing greener alternatives); here are some of TreeHugger's picks for those leading the way by banning plastic bags.
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1) Though it took a few years, San Francisco successfully banned the bag in large markets and pharmacies in March of this year, making it the first municipality in the United States to do so. The move should keep 180 million bags, give or take, from entering the waste stream each year.
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2) All IKEA stores in the US also made a move to ban the bag by charging customers a nickel per bag to haul their Swedish fish and affordable housewares out of the store. IKEA projected that the number of plastic bags used by their US customers will be reduced by at least 50% from 70 million to 35 million in the first year. The move may have influenced a similar plan to ban bags in all retail outlets in Annapolis, Maryland.
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3) Modbury, in Devon (in the UK) became the first town in Europe to stop using plastic carrier bags. Interestingly, the move wasn't prompted by government action, but was the result of a hard fought and won campaign started by local activist Rebecca Hosking, who started by single-handedly approaching and convincing store owners to stop using plastic. Action in Australia and India, beneath the fold...
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4) Fizroy Falls, a small town in Australia, completely banned the bag way back in the summer of 2005; Deputy Mayor Nick Campbell-Jones said the declaration of Fitzroy Falls as a plastic bag-free town was an example for the rest of the shire to follow. "This is the first locally-branded, re-useable shopping bag in the area and it goes some way towards the creation of a sustainable community," he said.
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5) Vasco, a city on the west coast of India, has been the first council to implement the "Zero Garbage Town Scheme" following a high court judgment in late 2003. The scheme was launched on January 26, 2006; in anticipation of the difficulty that the ban would bring, many incentives were built in to the system, like the distribution of free jute and paper bags, and citizens were awarded one liter of milk for free for every 100 empty milk containers returned.
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And that is one of the reasons I am a proud San Franciscan...
I looked at Core 77's design contest, and I don't think the situation is something we can design our way out of.
I think the solution is either going to be a durable community bag-share program like a community bike-share program, which unfortunately I think would suffer from an "eww... that's GROSS" response, and lead to missing bags which wouldn't help anyone... to a bag RENTAL program where you're forced to pay for the durable bag, but that payment is really just a deposit if you bring it back in useable condition.
I think the bottle deposit works in states that still have it. The incentive to return the bag has to be worth more than the bag is worth itself for it to work, but you sure wouldn't be getting a bag for one pack of chewing gum and some ear plugs ever again.
I can't believe you wrote an article about plastic bags and failed to mention the Irish initiative, which pre-dates all of the above!
In March 2002, the Irish Government placed a 15c levy on all plastic bags at the point of sale. The result? A 90% reduction in use of plastic bags within 3 months and a huge increase in the use of long-life durable shopping bags (mostly sold by large supermarkets). The difference to the environment was immediately noticeable as well, with the flapping bags caught in trees and bushes disappearing practically overnight.
The change in attitudes has been enormous - the response has overwhelmingly involved the public using their own fabric shopping bags as well as the long-life ones, although you do occasionally see people walking down the road clutching a pint of milk and a loaf of bread because they forgot their bag and refused a plastic one. I've also found it really jarring when I travel outside the country and I'm being handed plastic bags left, right and centre. It's really great to see more places introducing similar schemes!
I shop at Whole Foods and a local store called Natural Foods. At Whole Foods you can choose between paper or plastic, of course, but they also sell their own canvas bags which I use and they work great! Even though we do recycle virtually everything, this saves be from having to take home the plastic or paper bags. Natural Foods actually saves and uses their inventory boxes to pack up their customers purchased goods. How resourceful it that!
And Costco stores have never used bags, but you are allowed to use the boxes that bring the products to the store.
More bans?? What's wrong with plastic bags and the monsters they create when they accumulate?? Bag Monsters aren't so bad, you know... I'm a family monster with millions of little Bag Monster spawn to worry about. Some of them live under kitchen sinks, but most of them live in the bay and ocean. Search for my Bag Monster blog to learn more about how we're being oppressed world wide. All these bag bans are supposedly because we make an expensive mess, cause "environmental damage," and because a few of us were eaten by marine animals... Don't they know better than to eat Bag Monsters?
I would love to offer reusable bags at my art shows for people to purchase, but they are so expensive I couldn't afford to buy a bunch and couldn't afford to offer them at a reasonable price. If anyone knows where I could get some pretty cheap, please pass the info on to me!
I would love to offer reusable bags at my art shows but any I have been able to find are too expensive! I need them inexpensive enough to be able to afford a bunch and resell them for a reasonable price. If anything like that exists, I would love to heard about it!