Did you see today’s article about how San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 to ban plastic bags at grocery and drug stores over the next 6-12 months? The legislation, which is expected to go under a final vote next week before being approved by the Mayor, would require stores to use either recyclable paper bags or compostable bags made of corn starch.
There are great reasons for reducing our consumption of plastic bags. Production costs are high - toxic chemicals used in manufacturing plastic bags cause pollution. Consumption costs are equally high, if not higher. Plastic bags kill marine life and land animals, who mistake the bags as food; plastic bags take up to 1000 years to degrade and break down into smaller particles which contaminate our land and water; and finally, they take up valuable space in our diminishing landfills.
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So what do you make of this? Some have argued that SF has more pressing social issues which need to be tackled (”We need to move on to address the larger issues in San Francisco,” says Edward Jew (Member of the SF Board of Supervisors)), and I agree. There is a crappy educational system, too many homeless, etc. But on the flip side, it is encouraging to see people becoming more action-oriented when it comes to the environment.
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