Web-Resol Tudo sobre Limpeza Urbana e Resíduos Sólidos!
In a move aimed at lessening pollution in the city, Los Angeles officials decided Tuesday to investigate alternatives to plastic bags, including possibly banning plastic bags in the city altogether.
The Daily Bruin reports that the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works will conduct a study to look into the effects of plastic bags on the environment and landfills. Costs of other potential solutions such as compostable bags, which are commonly made of corn or potato starch, will also be taken into consideration. Finally, the department will also look into where compost sites will be located.
The recommendation to conduct a study was submitted by Los Angeles County Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Yvonne Burke following a recent ban on plastic bags implemented in San Francisco.
Cities are increasingly discussing banning plastic bags as more studies come to light about how plastic bags clog water systems, do not disintegrate, and take a long time to decompose, said Gary Boze, spokesman for the Department of Public Works.
Compostable bags are looked on as a favorable replacement because the bags are made of renewable resources and are biodegradable, said Bryan Early, plastics policy associate at Californians Against Waste. But critics are against replacing plastic bags with compostable bags since they are more expensive and are non-recyclable.
"Putting a compostable bag in a recycling bin will contaminate the bin. It will create contamination issues as well as cost issues. Any increase in cost will be passed on to consumers," said Kristin Power, vice president of the California Grocers Association. Power said she believes there are alternatives to the ban that would make more sense for residents, including a statewide recycling program.
The program was sponsored by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, in Assembly Bill 2449, and will be implemented July 1. It will require certain retailers and chain pharmacies to take back bags from customers to recycle, and to print recycling messages on the bags.
Dorothy Le, cochair of the UCLA student group Ecology, Economy, Equity, said she was concerned the proposal to ban plastic bags was too simplistic and failed to take into account the increased use of paper bags, which require trees for production.
"I think it would be easier to charge people for the plastic bags that they use and to use less bags in general," Le said.
Le said if markets switched to paper bags, which would be another solution to plastic bags, markets would have to spend more money to transport paper bags since they are heavier than plastic bags.
Le added that compostable bags would take a lot of energy to produce because the bags are made out of corn.
Currently, Kerckhoff Coffee House and other Associated Students UCLA eateries offer paper bags for students who want food to go, said Student Union Director Roy Champawat.
"There‘‘s no easy solution. There are costs and environmental issues to take in. We‘‘re looking for the best one," Le said
Artigos Relacionados
Check Also
Waste management poses challenges, but could unlock major environmental and economic gains
Every day, the city of Rio de Janeiro, one of the largest metropolises in the Southern Hemisphere, generates 17,000 tonnes of waste, ranging from large industrial debris to candy wrappers bought innocently at newspaper stands. While this waste presents a serious and urgent environmental challenge, it also fuels an increasingly significant portion of the economy, with benefits extending beyond financial gains. - When we look at developed European countries, many are already recycling between 40% and 50%, with some reaching 60%. From an economic standpoint, both recyclable materials and organic waste hold tremendous value - stated Adalberto Maluf, National Secretary for Environment and Environmental Quality at the Ministry of the Environment (MMA), during the Methane Forum: Climate Emergency Brake, at the Rio Nature and Climate Week. Citing a 2025 report, Maluf mentioned that Brazil literally throws away R$27 billion annually, while municipalities spend significantly more - R$45 billion - managing all this waste, often overlooking the environmental impact or economic potential buried in landfills and dumps. - We spend R$45 billion to collect and dispose of waste in landfills, yet we manage to recycle less than a third of the potential. I believe it will be necessary to review contracts, create performance-based remuneration mechanisms, and pay for both effectively sorted materials and those diverted from landfills - he added. According to the IBGE, 60.5% of Brazilian municipalities adopt some form of selective waste collection, and several initiatives serve as examples of how to manage city waste. In his panel presentation, Bernardo Ornelas, Project Coordinator at the Rio de Janeiro Municipal Urban Cleaning Company (Comlurb), highlighted Ecoparque do Caju, a national benchmark in waste management and recycling. There, received materials are sorted and can be used for biogas production, organic compounds for urban gardens, or human consumption, in the case of still...