ChicoBags and at far right,
a My Own Bag
May 2007 | On Our Radar
It’s Official: SF Bans Plastic Bags
And other communities and states are interested in following suit
By Lennon Bergland
Plastic bags are so ubiquitous in South Africa, seen flapping from fences and tree limbs in the thousands, that they have become known as the “national flower.” In western India they’re blamed for major flooding when they clogged storm drains during monsoon season. Along the coast of California, migrating leatherback turtles, marine biologists believe, mistake them for jellyfish, filling their intestinal tract with plastic debris.
And in San Francisco, they may be a thing of the past.
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors passed legislation to ban plastic bags in major supermarkets in about six months and large chain pharmacies in about a year. The 10-1 vote on March 27 and Mayor Gavin Newson’s signing of the bill last month made San Francisco the first U.S. city to take action against the petroleum-based grocery bags, which are a growing environmental hazard.
India, Ireland, France and several Southeast Asian countries have already found success with similar legislation. Belfast’s 2002 tax on plastic bags limited their use almost immediately by more than 90 percent.
San Francisco stores will likely switch to a biodegradable bag made of corn and potato starch, suppliers of which already exist in California and Oregon. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who championed the legislation, hopes the replacement bags, which can be disposed of along with food scraps, will help enliven SF’s green bin program.
Although most stores are unsure if they will carry the biodegradable bags — each costs about five cents more than conventional plastic — many have already began encouraging alternatives. Rainbow Grocery on Folsom, for example, had already successfully done away with plastic bags before the supervisors’ vote (they just have paper and push customers to bring their own bags), Whole Foods has already offered re-usable bags for sale for less than one dollar and Safeway stores have been offering a five-cent rebate for customers who bring their own bags.
Stores are not the only ones who will have to make changes. “Consumers will be forced to be more conscious,” Dave Heylen of the California Grocers Association says. “There will be an education period.”
But more and more San Francisco residents are already taking responsibility, bringing their own reusable bags to the store with them. Gene Suarez shops with a green Whole Foods bag. “I think it makes sense,” he says. “My decision was not ideological or political as much as it was out of convenience.”
The anti-plastic buzz is already catching on across the country. Mirkarimi’s office has been flooded with calls from city officials in Massachusetts, Texas, New York and across California, all interested in implementing similar legislation. In fact, following the SF Supervisors’ lead, New York State Assemblyman William Colton from Brooklyn proposed a state-wide ban on plastic bags in New York, which the New York Times supported in an editorial on April 15 (“Bagging Eternal Plastics”).
If trends continue, it’s possible that petroleum plastic bags, and not just in San Francisco, will be a grocery-shopping anachronism for future generations.
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