San Fransisco sees the light

CBS News today carried a story saying that San Francisco officials believe that the city spends 5.2 cents per bag annually for street litter pickup and 1.4 cents per bag for extra recycling costs. San Francisco may become the first city in the United States to charge shoppers for grocery bags. The city's environmental commission 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. Their goal is to reduce plastic bag pollution. Plastic bags jam machinery, pollute waterways and often end up in trees. They are also ingested by wild life and cause them to suffer even as they die premature deaths. Officials believe 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. But you know and I know that this is not true. How many times have you reused a plastic bag? Maybe once in a blue moon. Other interested opponents call the plan an unfair and regressive tax on shoppers. I’m sure you will agree that this argument is facile. Far better, more attractive options exist in the form of reusable fabric bags. See the fantastic range available at http://www.badlani.com/bags/ and then click on various styles to be pleasantly surprised at how economical they are. Considering that each of our bags gets reused between 100 and 500 times, they are much, much cheaper than plastic or paper bags