USA – San Francisco to vote on plastic bag ban

San Francisco‘‘s Board of Supervisors were due to consider passing an ordinance that would require large supermarkets and pharmacies in the city to replace non-biodegradable plastic bags with reusable or recyclable bags, a move that would make San Francisco the first city in the US to introduce such a ban.



CBS Broadcasting reports that the ordinance would apply to large pharmacies and 54 grocery stores in the city with annual retail sales of more than US$2 million.



Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who sponsored the original version of the ordinance, said the proposal has the support of most supervisors, the city‘‘s garbage disposal contractor, and even many smaller retailers, who won‘‘t have to comply with the ban.



Grocery stores and pharmacies are the focus of the ordinance because they give out more bags each year than any other retailer, according to Mirkarimi spokesman Boris Delepine.



The ordinance originally addressed just the 54 largest grocery outlets in the city but was amended to add large pharmacies.



Efforts to reduce the distribution of plastic bags in the city have been a long time coming, Mirkarimi said. They began in 2005 when San Francisco‘‘s Department of the Environment proposed charging a 17-cent fee per plastic shopping bag. That proposal was shelved when the 54 largest supermarkets in the city agreed to voluntarily reduce by 10 million the number of bags distributed in the city in 2006.



Those stores were estimated to distribute 100 million to 150 million plastic bags each year, Mirkarimi said.

However, the stores haven‘‘t been able to provide verifiable numbers of their reduction in bag use, he said.



Mirkarimi and Delepine said efforts at the state level around the same time to reduce the distribution of plastic bags were also stymied. Plastics industry lobbyists were able to get changes into an assembly bill intended to require grocery stores to recycle bags that made it impossible for cities and counties to implement fees for bag use.



Mirkarimi said he wasn‘‘t happy with AB 2449 anyway and wants to see a reduction in overall bag use rather than an emphasis on recycling.



"You can‘‘t make a plastic bag into something else," he said, adding that fewer than 1 percent of plastic bags provided to consumers are actually recycled.



Some 14 tons of plastic waste are sent to San Francisco‘‘s landfills each year, he said, and the city‘‘s garbage contractor spends "upwards of $7 million a year" separating recyclable from non-recyclable bags tossed out with people‘‘s trash.



The California Grocers‘‘ Association has opposed the ordinance, arguing that consumers would be confused by the different types of plastic bag they receive. People would unintentionally try to recycle both compostable and regular plastic bags, the association argued, resulting in the pollution of what plastic the city does recycle.



The association has argued that because of the risk that recyclable plastic originating in San Francisco could be contaminated, the city might be faced with having to dispose of plastic waste rather than even try to recycle it.



President Peter Larkin said in a statement, "Singling out one segment of the retail stores and mandating the use of one type of bag is not the solution to a more global issue," he said. "It simply trades one environmental concern for others and pits one type of store against another."



Under the ordinance, retailers will be permitted to use any combination of biodegradable plastic, paper and recycled bags.



If the ordinance passes Tuesday, grocery stores will have six months to comply with the new requirement and pharmacies will have 12 months.



The fines for breaking the law are the same as t