Did your town/country got rid of plastic bags?

Question

Could you tell me how did you do that?

Thanks

Answer 1

San Francisco has banned plastic bags.  

You might find this forum thread interesting (it's about plastic bag bans): http://greenhome.huddler.com/forum/threa...

For more details on the SF ban, here's an article from the SF Gate:

Paper or plastic? Not anymore in San Francisco.

The city's Board of Supervisors approved groundbreaking legislation Tuesday to outlaw plastic checkout bags at large supermarkets in about six months and large chain pharmacies in about a year.

The ordinance, sponsored by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, is the first such law in any city in the United States and has been drawing global scrutiny this week.

"I am astounded and surprised by the worldwide attention," Mirkarimi said. "Hopefully, other cities and other states will follow suit."

Fifty years ago, plastic bags -- starting first with the sandwich bag -- were seen in the United States as a more sanitary and environmentally friendly alternative to the deforesting paper bag. Now an estimated 180 million plastic bags are distributed to shoppers each year in San Francisco. Made of filmy plastic, they are hard to recycle and easily blow into trees and waterways, where they are blamed for killing marine life. They also occupy much-needed landfill space.

Two years ago, San Francisco officials considered imposing a 17-cent tax on petroleum-based plastic bags before reaching a deal with the California Grocers Association. The agreement called for large supermarkets to reduce by 10 million the number of bags given to shoppers in 2006. The grocers association said it cut back by 7.6 million, but city officials called that figure unreliable and unverifiable because of poor data supplied by markets.

To read the read, go here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...

Answer 2

Actually, the thin plastic bags here in the US are not all that bad. They are made from polyethylene or polypropylene, I forgot, and are extremely light. PE and PE only contain carbon and hydrogen, no chloride like PVC, so they are chemically relatively "clean". PE and PP are easily recycled and have a low melting temperature. They also decompose quite rapidly under UV from the sun. IMO, the much bigger problem is with the individual plastic and cardboard wrapping of stuff in the supermarket.

Answer 3

I am living in Ootacamund known as "Ooty" located on the Western Ghats in the southern peninsula of India, a hilly town where plastic bags are totally banned and using paper bags is in adoption. This is possible by:

1. Strict implementation of banning plastic bags by the government agencies

2. Co-operation by the merchants and people to avoid plastic bags

3. Awareness created among people about the ill effects of using plastic bags in the hilly town

Answer 4

my town actually is trying to get rid of brown paper bags. The only way you will get one is if you ask for it. Some stores in my down are not even carrying them.

Answer 5

They didn't get rid of them, they just started to charge 15c for each one, which has now been risen to 22c. They did this in the guise of environmentalism, saying that it would reduce the amount of plastic bags people use and that everyone would re-use their bags over and over and we'd all be super happy because we were doing our bit...

But guess what, after a number of years it has had very little effect on the situation, the only real difference I see is that the government have once agian found a way to s***w us all out of more money under the pretence of doing something that is supposedly for our benefit.

Answer 6

No.  Here (Italy) only one shop I know of has done so.  The thing that really bugs me here is that when you buy fruit / veg at the supermarket, you have to wear a plastic glove to pick up the fruit, which then has to go in a plastic bag.  If you don't wear the glove people tell you off!  Ridiculous!  They're a bit neanderthal regarding plastic waste here. :-(

Answer 7

yeah trying to..they are trying to get people to use environment bags,but people are so cheap they wont bloody buy em...

Answer 8

Then what are you going to do with all the plastic milk jugs?  Milk jugs are recycled into plastic bags.  Plastic bags take up less space than jugs.