The move to outlaw plastic shopping bags is spreading from San Francisco to other Bay Area communities, but the latest measures are rankling some shopkeepers and plastic manufacturers who say the bans go too far.
When San Francisco banned single-use plastic bags from big grocery stores in 2007, some dismissed the move as just another idiosyncrasy of the famously progressive city. Now, a number of neighboring local governments, including San Jose and Sunnyvale, are approving or considering bans of their own. The idea is to keep plastic bags from littering streets, jamming trash-processing machines and swimming in San Francisco Bay. The San Francisco ban has lowered plastic-bag waste in the city by 15% to 20%, according to the city's trash and recycling contractor.
Encouraged by San Francisco's example, these communities hope to take the bag ban one step further. Because paper bags have environmental problems of their own—trees and other resources are consumed to make them—some local governments are aiming to limit use of both plastic and paper, by banning plastic bags altogether and charging a nominal fee for paper ones. The goal is to persuade shoppers to start bringing reusable bags to stores.
The latest measures come in the wake of a well-publicized state bill that would have banned single-use plastic bags throughout California. The measure ultimately failed last year but attracted the attention of local governments that are now considering bans of their own. Another impetus is a new state requirement that cities in the Bay Area limit debris that passes into water bodies through storm drains.
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