Front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, with the plastic bag ban story.

San Francisco bans plastic shopping bags

San Francisco (U.S.A.) has outlawed plastic checkout bags at large supermarkets and chain pharmacy stores.

The ordinance is the first such law in any city in the U.S.A. Under the legislation, large markets and pharmacies will have the option of using compostable bags made of corn starch, or bags made of recyclable paper.

Compostable bags can be recycled in the city’s green garbage bins and will make it more convenient for residents to recycle food scraps. It takes 430,000 gallons of oil to manufacture 100 million bags.

Large supermarkets have about six months to comply, and large chain pharmacies have a year to comply with the new ordinance.

Waste management approaches also reduce transportation-related emissions and overall energy savings by reusing items that would otherwise have to be manufactured. Also, a dependence on landfills can be reduced through waste prevention and recycling measures, resulting in the further elimination of greenhouse gas emissions. For more information on the importance of waste management, please visit www.iclei.org/ccp.

San Francisco is one of 93 local governments in the U.S.A. that are currently Members of ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. For more information on ICLEI and its projects in the U.S.A., please visit www.iclei.org/usa.

Source: “San Francisco supes vote to ban plastic shopping bags”, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 March 2007.

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