San Francisco may become the first city in the nation to charge shoppers for grocery bags.
The city's Commission on the Environment is expected to ask the mayor and board of supervisors Tuesday to consider a 17-cent per bag charge on paper and plastic grocery bags. While the goal is reducing plastic bag pollution, paper was added so as not to discriminate.
"The whole point is to encourage the elimination of waste, not to make people pay more for groceries," said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste.
Environmentalists argue that plastic bags jam machinery, pollute waterways and often end up in trees. In addition to large supermarkets, other outfits that regularly use plastic bags, including smaller grocery stores, dry cleaners and takeout restaurants, could eventually be targeted.
Officials calculate that the city spends 5.2 cents per bag annually for street litter pickup and 1.4 cents per bag for extra recycling costs.
Grocers and bag manufacturers argue that many people already reuse their plastic bags, and that the use of plastic won't go down because people will purchase plastic trash bags to use instead. Other opponents call the plan an unfair and regressive tax on shoppers.
Dear Lord, lest I continue in my complacent ways, help me to remember that someone died for me today. And if there be war, help me to remember to ask and to answer "am I worth dying for?" - Eleanor Roosevelt
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)
Well in Germany it's very common to pay for plastic bags - no matter what. That's why I have in my car plastic folding crates in which I put my groceries and just carry the crates in when I come home.
No ripped bags and no worry and not hundreds of bags in the house and right in the trash.
Up here in Canada we only pay for our plastic bags at one of the three major groceries stores. Superstore charges 4 cents a bag but Safeway and Co-op don't charge anything but the price for the bags is hidden in their prices!!
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