|
|
Article: Watching and waiting in San Francisco.(paper bags may be readily recycled)
- Article from:
- Waste News
- Article date:
- May 22, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Crain Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Byline: Jared Blumenfeld
Checkout bags of the kind you get at grocery stores, whether paper or plastic, are an environmental pariah. While paper bags may be readily recycled, their impact on the boreal forests is far from sustainable.
And plastic bags are nothing but trouble over their entire life cycle. They're a source of greenhouse gas emissions in their manufacture, they're extremely difficult to recycle (if you can even find a market for the material), and they're one of the most common items littering our city streets, highways and oceans.
Back at the end of 2004 San Francisco's Environment Commission, an advisory body that makes policy ...