USA – plastic bags illegal at major San Francisco grocery stores

Attention San Francisco shoppers: Plastic grocery store bags are going, going, gone.



The San Francisco Chronicle reports that large grocery stores in the city can no longer use the traditional plastic bags that are a staple of the supermarket checkout line, as a city ordinance passed earlier this year to ban the bags takes effect.



"People are used to getting free bags and thinking there is no real consequence to them, but there is a cost," said Jack Macy, commercial recycling coordinator for the city‘‘s Department of the Environment, which is implementing the new policy.



The 180 million plastic bags city officials estimate are handed out in the city each year end up as litter on city streets, clog storm drains, harm wildlife, and contaminate and jam machines used in recycling, Macy said. And then there is the giant patch of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean that scientists are monitoring, estimated to weigh 3 million tons and cover an area twice the size of Texas. The patch is about 1,000 miles west of San Francisco, but plastic dumped in the ocean here can end up there.



Under the new policy, passed by the city‘‘s Board of Supervisors in March, only retail businesses and smaller grocery stores will be able to hand out the bags. Six months from now, pharmacy chains will also have to comply. The policy will be the first enacted in the United States – Oakland passed a similar ban that goes into effect early next year and London and Paris both have followed San Francisco‘‘s lead – and Macy said city enforcement will start Dec. 1.



Stores that don‘‘t comply face fines starting at US$100 for a first violation. Penalties increase to US$200 for a second violation in the same year and to US$500 thereafter. Stores can still use plastic bags so long as they are a special type that are compostable. Bags must now be made of at least 40 percent high-grade recycled paper, and many stores are using bags made from 100 percent recycled paper, Macy said.



Few, if any, stores offer compostable bags to customers, though. Those bags are biodegradable, and Macy cautions people not to throw them out with the regular garbage but instead to put them in the green city waste bins. When they are available, the city will require the compostable bags to be clearly marked.



Paper bags can be placed in the traditional blue recycling bins.



At grocery stores across the city, where sale displays of reusable canvas bags are becoming increasingly prominent, many shoppers said they welcome the change to a paper-dominant checkout line.



"I like them," said Bill O‘‘Brien, who was shopping at the Cala Foods at California and Hyde streets in the city last week. The store has already switched entirely to paper bags. "They are easier to carry and you can put more in them."



O‘‘Brien, who lives at a senior housing center on O‘‘Farrell Street and has been in the city 40 years, said he sees more and more discarded plastic bags on the streets. He now uses plastic bags to line garbage cans at his home, but said, "I‘‘ll start using those, I guess," pointing to a paper sack in his shopping cart.



His acceptance is not universal, though. Richard Casey, who has lived in the city 20 years, followed him out of the store and minced no words.



"I think it‘‘s an idiotic utopian notion, which is typical of the Board of Supervisors," Casey said. At the store, the checkers double-bagged nearly every item, he noted, adding, "I can‘‘t help thinking paper uses more resources than plastic."



The debate at City Hall over paper versus plastic has taken several years to get to this point. In 2005, city officials first considered charging a fee for each bag used by shoppers, but that idea never got off the g