Posted on 03/08/2007 2:08:18 PM PST by Cagey
SAN FRANCISCO -- Paper or plastic won't mean the same for shoppers in San Francisco if some city supervisors get their way.
A proposal up for consideration next week would prohibit large grocers from using regular plastic bags. Supporters of the ban say the bags eat up fossil fuels, litter the streets and choke wildlife.
The measure would require grocery stores to offer only bags made of recyclable paper, plastic that can be turned into compost, or sturdy cloth or plastic that can be reused.
The proposed ban has the support of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. But it's opposed by the California Grocers Association as potentially doing more damage to the environment.
President Peter Larkin said confused consumers would wind up mixing biodegradable bags with regular plastic bags in recycling bins, thereby contaminating recycled plastic.
You have a good point about paper bags. I use paper bags to pack up small cardboard boxes and sort paper for recycling. The plastic bags take up so little room as I save them up for recycling, that by their physical nature, are much handier.
The big question is how much fossil fuel is used producing all of the plastic bags in this country? Then you should ask, does it cost more in transportation costs to get the logs to the paper plants and the paper to the bag plants and the bags to the stores. It seems to me that paper by its weight factor would cost more to transport.
I think we should have a choice between paper or plastic. There are times I would want the convenience of plastic but then, there are times I want paper bags for my later household uses.
Actually they were chocking there chicken with them.
> thus this entire "ecologically friendly" change over was
> actually ecologically damaging.
Kind of like the idiotic MTBE fiasco.
I think you're trying to be funny...but places like the Salvation Army and Goodwill would love to use those bags, if they are clean.
Me, too! Two cats...kitty litter lumps!!
I don't mean to sound callous...but India, clean up your own mess!!!
Good for San Francisco! - The number of paper bags we can get out of one Giant Sequoia boggles the mind- and they're renewable!
Plastic bags are good for picking up after your dog. Wonder if the biodegradable ones will disintegrate when used for that purpose?
Of all the things San Francisco needs to fix, this is somewhere down several million in priority.
LOL!!
Paper is still better.
The story left out that this would only be for grocery stores that gross over $2 million/year.
I want paper bags made by mucus producing wasps........
Plastic is good keep keep around while traveling in case someone had to puke.
Also, the stores make blue ones and our recycling (aluminum, glass, plastic) goes in them. But we get more than we use. Not enough recycling or puking.
Way to ignore the facts. Neither paper nor plastic recycles well, paper bags are larger and require more shipments to get the same number of bags to the stores, and paper bags are heavier requiring more fuel be burned in a shipment. Exactly HOW is paper better? The only advantage it has is that when people disgard of it improperly it's not as mobile and won't go flying all over the place, but that entirely revolves around people littering so if people would just stop doing that paper's one "advantage" would go away.
Those "boobs" are polluting our landfills. Makes no green sense. Bags of silicone all over the place. Just awful!
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