San Francisco may charge for grocery sacks to cut waste

[Red]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — City officials are considering charging grocery stores 17 cents each for grocery bags to discourage use of plastic sacks.

More than 90% of consumers choose plastic bags, which are blamed for everything from clogging recycling machines to killing marine life and suffocating infants. But the fee would also apply to paper bags to help reduce overall waste.

Promoting a healthy environment "means we need to help change people's patterns, and that even means their shopping patterns," said incoming city Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who takes office in January. "This is a sensible user fee."

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this should be nationwide.

[DngrMse]

It has nothing to do with waste, and everything to do with bleeding anyone with money white.

At one time, ( ), plastic was good, because it could be recycled. Ditto paper. I think they should charge these politicians $100,000 dollars each, for every new law enacted. That would cut down on something, sure.

[BadNews88]

Do they not have recycling bins for paper, plastic, newsprint, etc. at their Retail Emporiums? The ALBERTSON'S Grocery chain here in Colorado has 'em!!

[Myrddin]

The government put a levy on plastic bags in Ireland and it made a huge decrease in plastic bags being thrown around the countryside and in our cities. At the same time shops started offering reuseable bags for you to buy and these bags can last for years. I think its a good idea.

[jojo]

I'll take my paper - thank you.

SF can bite me!!

*extends a healthy middle finger*

[ThePrankMonkey]

i dont think this is going to have the results they're looking for. its a bandaid solution.

the best solution IMO, is to bring your own bags made of cotton or whatever, which BTW is a hell of a lot stronger.

but i'll be angry if this happens here. i rely on those plastic bags to do my cats litter boxes, without those WTF am i gonna use? maybe i'll use the politicians lawns...


i recycle whatever bags i dont use along with most of the plastic i use. i feel people like me are being punished because other people cant respect the environment enough to dispose of a bag properly.

but what are they going to do with people who throw mcdonalds bags out their cars? impose a "tax" on mcdonalds bags too?

i think this is going a bit too far. sounds like they're finding new and creative ways to get more money from us.

[Red]

Originally Posted by Myrddin

At the same time shops started offering reuseable bags for you to buy and these bags can last for years. I think its a good idea.

amen. i actually just picked up a bunch a few days ago.

[Unrepresented]

Originally Posted by ThePrankMonkey

i dont think this is going to have the results they're looking for. its a bandaid solution.

the best solution IMO, is to bring your own bags made of cotton or whatever, which BTW is a hell of a lot stronger.

Congratulations for successfully summing up the entire point of the proposed price increase.

[DngrMse]

Originally Posted by ThePrankMonkey

the best solution IMO, is to bring your own bags made of cotton or whatever, which BTW is a hell of a lot stronger.

Great for small trips to the store, but impractical for when stocking up on groceries. We save all those plastic bags, and reuse them for a myriad of different purposes anyway....mostly as trash bags, which we'd otherwise have to buy, and would end up in a landfill just like the grocery bags.

If SF pushes this through, people who can will just shop outside of the city, and the tax-free bags they come home with will still end up clogging their landfills.