MIRANO ASAI | staff writer

Los Angeles has a good GREEN neighbor to follow. Carrying plastic bags is not happening anymore in San Francisco. In March 2007, the city’s Board of Supervisors approved the groundbreaking legislation to outlaw plastic checkout bags at large supermarkets from last September and large chain pharmacies by early 2008.

San Francisco is officially the first city to ban plastic shopping bags in the United States.

Approximately 180 million plastic bags are produced for 740,000 shoppers each year in San Francisco. The bag is made by film plastic. It is hard to recycle and easily blows into trees and waterways, which would be a great danger for marine life.

Under the new legislation, supermarkets and pharmacies have to use either biocompostable bags made from corn starch, or recycled paper. The biocompostable bags would be easily recyclable through the city’s green garbage bin program. The bag also represents one of many environmentally-minded measures that have been taken by the city.

Some grocery stores even offer the customer with their own shopping bag, and to donate the fee of plastic bags to environmentalist groups.

The consideration of using plastic bags actually began three years ago. The officials of San Francisco considered imposing a 17-cent tax on plastic bags before reaching a deal with the California Grocers Association. The agreement ordered large grocery stores to reduce the number of plastic bags by 10 million bags.

“San Francisco is the birthplace of Hippies and this history somehow affects people and the city. We can still see some parts of their history from the many painted houses using bright colors that produce a cheerful atmosphere.” San Francisco native Keisuke Kato said. “The gene of the Hippies might affect them to look back on and care about nature.”

Also, the geography of San Francisco is unique, which causes people to focus on the environment of the city. Since mountains surround San Francisco, only a limited space is available for living. Therefore, the ruined buildings are removed and rebuilt quickly.

Because it takes 430,000 gallons of oil to manufacture 100 million bags, the new law has affected San Francisco economically and environmentally. However, the grocer association has warned that it would frustrate recycling efforts and would increase both consumer and retailer costs.

In addition, not many people are satisfied with the availability and quality of biocompostable bags. The 95,000 small businesses in San Francisco that still continue to use plastic bags becomes another problem too.

Although there are several questions that need to be solved, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi is astounded and surprised by the worldwide attention and he hopes other cities and states will follow its example.