? For You Californians...

[goodkevin]

Is it true that plastic bags are really banned in grocery stores, etc. in San Francisco? I heard that this was the case, and I'm curious if it's true...my wife and I (in NYC) are always using and trying to get other people to use re-usable bags and save the plastic and stuff, so props to Cali if that's goin on. :)

[comhcinc]

i lived in san francisco a couple of years ago and i don't remember every going into a grocery store....between the farmers market and the girlfriend's stance on meat i didn't need to

[k4ng]

The Fullerton/Brea/Yorba Linda area in Orange County still uses plastic bags.

[professio]

I heard about this law. From what I know, it is only in San Francisco and it is not plastic bags it is the type of bag that cannot be recycled.

[tokenuser]

I can't comment on SoCal anymore (haven't lived there for 3 years), but there are a number of stores in NC that will give you a rebate if you use your own bags - plastic or otherwise. Lowes (food, not hardware) is one.

[professorparc]

uuuuuummm? maybe in certain districts. like in Berlingame, south San Francisco/"San Mateo" you are not allowed to spit in public. weird stuff like that.. i found the vote on google and it is only petroleum-based plastic bags.. but if they do that they kinda have to stop using traffic cones and stuff like that too.... i mean how can you ban one thing thats made with petroleum-based plastic and not another.. makes no sense .


ooh and in Germany grocery stores don't have bags you must bring your own or buy some at checkout... weird

[tokenuser]

.. i found the vote on google and it is only petroleum-based plastic bags.. but if they do that they kinda have to stop using traffic cones and stuff like that too.... i mean how can you ban one thing thats made with petroleum-based plastic and not another.. makes no sense .Traffic cones get reused over, and over, and over, and over again. Plastic shopping bags are generally one shot items before being dumped in landfill, to sit there until the next civilisation comes along in 100000 years time and starts drilling for oil.

According to numbers I found online (so take them with a grain of salt), San Francisco retailers use 180,000,000 plastic bags each year. It takes 430,000 gallons of oil (crude oil, not petroleum) to make 100,000,000 bags, so thats 774000 gallons of oil. 1 barrel of oil is 42 gallons, so eliminating 180M bags saves 184286 barrels of oil, which at todays market price costs of about $75/barrel = $13.8M. Another comparison - 1gallon of crude oil converts to approx .67gallons of gasolene ... so thats about the same as 518580 gallons of gas ... or 270 trips around the earth in a Hummer H2 (based on highway MPG estimates).

Suddenly those plastic bags look expensive - regardless of if you are a treehugger considering the long term effects on the environment, or a corporate consumerist.

[heyseuss]

Every time I say "paper please" at my Los Angeles grocery store, they always say "we're out". Lots of plastic in this country. You're suppposed to get 5cents off your purchase if you bring back bags though.

In Australia, from my local, you can buy large hemp bags for $1 and bring them back each time. They won't offer plastic. Australia is the leader of the world on environment and making life easier in general. Do you Australians realise how good you have it having $1 and $2 coins and everything ending in .05 or .00 ?

[tokenuser]

As an Aussie carrying around a wallet full of US$1 notes, and a centre console in my car overflowing with pennies ... yes I do.

[iccanui]

Forgive my n00bness, but what is SoCal ? I thought it meant southern california but i heard someone say it didnt some where.

[iccanui]

Every time I say "paper please" at my Los Angeles grocery store, they always say "we're out". Lots of plastic in this country. You're suppposed to get 5cents off your purchase if you bring back bags though.

In Australia, from my local, you can buy large hemp bags for $1 and bring them back each time. They won't offer plastic. Australia is the leader of the world on environment and making life easier in general. Do you Australians realise how good you have it having $1 and $2 coins and everything ending in .05 or .00 ?


Dude this is the coolest thing i have heard today. Using hemp bags instead of plastic. I was thinking about switching to paper recently but this is a much better approach. Any ideas on where to get said bags in the states ? If not ill use the google and search the internets. I really have been concerned about the environment and i pick up trash people drop, but i can really do SO much more and i want to.

[goodkevin]

we've got two big cloth bags we use for all of our shopping: one from barnes & noble, and one from whole foods. they both cost about 7 or 8 bucks each. the hardest part is having to fight off the baggers at the grocery store, and refuse their bags...especially the little old men whose livelihood it is to put your stuff in plastic bags...kinda breaks your heart.
anyway, new york is really putting a big effort into green-campaign: banners along streets with tips on little changes (cloth bags, e-billing, etc.), a big ad-campaign coming up for sinking the bottled water business and going back to tap water. all kinds of stuff. it's the way of the future!

[heyseuss]

As an Aussie carrying around a wallet full of US$1 notes, and a centre console in my car overflowing with pennies ... yes I do.

It's not bad enough the penny is worthless, but the american dollar pretty much is as well. Have you seen the Aus exchange rate lately Token? Almost even. :eek:

[heyseuss]

Forgive my n00bness, but what is SoCal ? I thought it meant southern california but i heard someone say it didnt some where.

Yeh it is. You heard it plenty in your 'moving to cali' thread. I was saying in that thread that I don't hear many people refer to it as 'Cali' except ppl from other states.

[heyseuss]

Dude this is the coolest thing i have heard today. Using hemp bags instead of plastic. I was thinking about switching to paper recently but this is a much better approach. Any ideas on where to get said bags in the states ? If not ill use the google and search the internets. I really have been concerned about the environment and i pick up trash people drop, but i can really do SO much more and i want to.

I fill my recycling bin every week and probbly throw 1 or 2 shopping bag sized bags of trash away. It's not just that Americans don't know how to recycle, it's that the govt. doesn't give a hoot and lets companies mass produce fossil fuel garbage making unrecyclable stuff. Order dinner delivery, and 1 dish comes in plastic and styrofoam and paper and foil and plastic - all for 20 mins of use. There just isn't that much unrecyclable garbage produced in Australia and alot of europe is with it too. Same can be said for food, in the 80's the FDA was scary and I thought had a handle on things, yet, in this day and age I'm surprised to find so much MSG and hydrogenated shit on the shelves in America, also rarely giving full ingredients on packaging or allergy alerts.

I've no idea where to get hemp shopping bags in USA. But last I heard Coles, in Australia was the food chain making ppl buy $1 hemp bags - which, btw, are quite large and strong and can be used over and over. I'm no good on the ineternets (unless it's porn) so see what you find and let me know because you've peaked my interests. BTW - just got home from a $184 food shopping spree . . . and I got hit on by two 20yr old visiting canadian girls (yay confidence, "I wouldn't have guessed 32, wow 25, 26 maybe" :rolleyes: ...) Got alot of paper bags now too. Anyway, tell me what you find, I'm going to have a threesome now.

[heyseuss]

Another shock to the system regarding Australia/America environment care/abuse, is the amount of worthlesss crap that I get in the mail. When I was in Aus from 84-96, unsolicited mail was semi-illegal and the post office did not handle it. If you wanted to stuff peoples mailboxes with advertising, you hired a high school kid to do it as the Australia Post wouldn't handle it. Americans, try making a stack, for one month, of the garbage mail you receive. After one month, take it to the post office and dump it on their doorstep, return to sender bastards. Ok, so maybe not the last part, but try stacking it all for a month, you'll be stunned.

[monkeynetman]

Grocery bags are still distributed at my local groceries (San Jose). Comes in handy as small garbage bin's bag.