It’s hard to imagine a grocery store checkout stand without those ubiquitous plastic shopping bags. But if environmentalists in San Francisco have their way, a new law could make the handy totes things of the past in the City by the Bay—and set the stage for what supporters hope will be a national movement.

The city’s Board of Supervisors recently passed legislation that forbids large supermarkets and chain pharmacies from packing up customers’ vitals and vittles with petroleum-based plastic bags. Instead, retailers will have to switch to compostable corn starch-based bags, or offer recyclable or reusable bags made from recycled materials to customers.

San Francisco’s new policy, which passed on March 27^th in a 10-1 vote, is expected to be signed into law by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. After the law is passed, retailers will have six months to make the appropriate changes to their existing bagging policies.

Plastic bags blowing through the streets of San Francisco have become as common a sight as cable cars. The city’s Department of the Environment estimates 180 million plastic shopping bags circulate throughout the 47 square-mile city.

But plastic bags do more to harm the environment than just clogging landfills and waterways—manufacturing them requires large quantities of fossil fuels. Approximately 430,000 gallons of oil are needed to produce 100 million non-biodegradable plastic bags, according to city officials.

The city’s new law reflects a global trend. In Ireland, shoppers that forget to bring their own bags shell out 15 cents for every bag they need. Known as the “plastax,” the law decreased use of plastic bags by 90 percent in five months. And one week before San Francisco passed its legislation, Leaf Rapids, a mining town in northern Manitoba, made it illegal for retailers to use plastic bags, and became the first municipality in North America to take such action.

The move also echoes independent efforts from green-thinking grocers such as Trader Joe’s, whose reusable canvas tote bags have become one of the store’s trademarks.

“Our B.Y.O.B. [bring your own bag] program offers incentives to encourage customers to bring in their reusable bags,” said Alison Mochizuki, the grocer’s national publicity director.

But not everyone is happy about the new law. Dave Heylen, vice president of communications for the California Grocers Association (CGA), believes that the new law will only complicate existing recycling efforts—and frustrate consumers in the process. Given that corn starch-based compostable bags are often twice as expensive as petroleum-based bags, Heylen says grocers might pass the difference in price onto consumers, making trips to the market more expensive. In addition, compostable bags threaten to make existing recycling efforts more confusing—consumers might unknowingly mix the biodegradable bags in with non-biodegradable bags, he says.

The CGA favors a different bags bill, one that would require large grocery retailers to make recycling bins more visible to consumers. But Ross Mirkarimi , a member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, points out that that bill also contains language that prohibits local governments from imposing any kind of user fee or tax on retailers that fail to restrict plastic bag use.

City officials, however, believe that the new policy makes sense. An increase in market demand, they say, will lower the price of the more expensive compostable bags. And they are confident that consumers will be able to distinguish the compostable bags from the recyclable ones—and dispose of them properly.

Mirkarimi says the next steps the city takes will prohibit plastic shopping bags distributed by independent business owners, restaurants, and others. And officials in Los Angeles County and New York State are considering enacting bag bans similar to San Francisco's.

“This legislation won’t stop here. It will radiate outward,” says Mirkarimi. “And this isn’t just a San Francisco thing; this is going to be a United States thing.”

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Posted on Apr 12, 2007 at 4:45 PM
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