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Austin retailers and grocery stores could no longer offer plastic bags at checkout counters under a ban Mayor Lee Leffingwell and two other City Council members will propose today . The ban would be phased in gradually, though it's not clear when it would start. Leffingwell said Sunday that plastic bags pollute waterways, harm wildlife, clog drainage systems and take up landfill space, where they don't biodegrade. A January report from the city's Solid Waste Services Department said Austinites use 263 million plastic bags a year, and the bags cost the city $850,000 a year to put in landfills and...

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- California's Senate has voted down a measure that would have banned plastic bags at grocery stores. The new ban was rejected by a 21 to 14 vote late Tuesday. The ban would have included grocery stores, convenience stores and drugstores. The California Assembly passed the legislation in June. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had said he would have signed the measure into law, the Los Angeles Times reported. Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club encouraged Californians to contact their state senators to push for the measure. The group Heal the Bay produced what it calls a...

Bags for life could have E.coli Tests on shoppers’ bags revealed half contained traces of E.coli, a lethal toxin which killed 26 people in Scotland in 1996 in one of the worlds worst food poisoning outbreaks. Scientists also found many were contaminated with salmonella. Reusable plastic shopping bags have become increasingly popular in Britain [and the US; insertion mine] thanks to supermarkets and other retailers giving out millions of free ones to shoppers in the last three years. It is estimated that there are "hundreds of millions" of bags for life in use in Britain, according to sources within Wrap,...

City leaders approved a ban on plastic grocery bags after weeks of lobbying on both sides from environmentalists and a supermarket trade group. San Francisco would be the first U.S. city to adopt such a rule if Mayor Gavin Newsom signs the ban as expected. The law, approved 10-1, requires large markets and drug stores to offer customers bags made of paper that can be recycled, plastic that breaks down easily enough to be made into compost, or reusable cloth. San Francisco supervisors and supporters said that by banning the petroleum-based sacks, blamed for littering streets and choking marine life,...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)-City leaders approved a ban on plastic grocery bags after weeks of lobbying on both sides from environmentalists and a supermarket trade group. If Mayor Gavin Newsom signs the ban as expected, San Francisco would be the first U.S. city to adopt such a rule.

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