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Date: 2025-05-09 Page is: DBtxt001.php txt00011665

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EcoWatch

EcoWatch .. navigation to a collection of articles by EcoWatch - 2016

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

San Diego Bans Plastic Bags

The San Diego City Council voted Tuesday to ban single-use plastic bags at grocery stores, pharmacies and corner markets.

The goal of the new ordinance is to encourage shoppers to use reusable bags, decreasing the number of plastic checkout bags used every year. San Diego goest through roughly 700 million plastic bags a year, with only 3 percent of them being recycled, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

'The vast majority of plastic bags we see are entangled in the brushes next to our rivers and streams,' said Kristin Kuhn, community engagement manager for San Diego Coastkeeper. 'After every rain event, these bags clog and choke our city's already damaged waterways.'

The city's ban would require grocery stores and other food retailers to charge at least 10 cents for each paper bag or for a sturdier bag, which often cost more.

'Stakeholders have worked tirelessly with local jurisdictions throughout the state to find a solution that makes sense for both the environment and businesses,' said Sophie Barnhorst, policy coordinator for the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce. 'A ban on plastic and a charge for paper has the potential to achieve maximal environment gain with minimal business disruption.'

San Diego's ban—which drew wide support from advocacy organizations such as the Surfrider Foundation's San Diego County chapter and San Diego Coastkeeper as well as the chamber of commerce—makes it the 150th municipality in the Golden State.

A second reading of the ordinance will happen in a few weeks. Large food stores will have six months to comply with the ordinance while smaller drug and convenience stores will have approximately a year.

San Diego has distributed about 40,000 reusable shopping bags to mainly low-income neighborhoods, food banks, schools and libraries to help prepare residents for the ordinance.

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By Lorraine Chow | Animals | Aug 2

'Fantastic News': England's Plastic Bag Usage Drops by 85%

England has cut its plastic bag use by 85 percent ever since a 5 pence (7 cent) charge was introduced last October, according to government figures.

England's plastic bag usage has dropped significantly ever since a 5p levy was introduced last year. Flickr

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) announced that 6 billion fewer plastic bags were taken home by shoppers in England. The levy also resulted in a £29 million ($38 million) donated to charity and other good causes thanks to the charge.

'This is the equivalent to the weight of roughly 300 blue whales, 300,000 sea turtles or three million pelicans,' DEFRA said about the eliminated bags.

To arrive at the 6 billion figure, officials calculated that the seven main retailers in England (Asda, Co-operative Group, Marks & Spencer, Morrison's, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Waitrose) passed out 7.6 billion bags in 2014. However, after the 5 pence charge was enacted, the retailers handed out just over half a billion bags in the first six months.

According to the Guardian, the bag fee was introduced to help reduce litter and protect wildlife. The idea also came about because English consumers were steadily using more and more bags every year, as you can see in the chart below.

Environment Minister Therese Coffey said taking 6 billion plastic bags out of circulation is 'fantastic news for all of us.'

'It will mean our precious marine life is safer, our communities are cleaner and future generations won't be saddled with mountains of plastic,' she added.

Incidentally, England is the last member of the UK to adopt the scheme—Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had already been charging for bags for years. Wales, for instance, stopped giving out free plastic bags back in 2011, cutting usage by 71 percent between 2011 and 2014, WalesOnline reported.

The publication noted that Northern Ireland has had a bag tax since April 2013 with the the number of bags issued by supermarkets falling from 190 million to 30 million in 2014. Scotland's similar legislation in 2014 slashed plastic bag usage by 80 percent.

Government bans or fees on these single-use items are clearly working, and they come at a crucial time for our oceans. A startling report from earlier this year warned that if plastic pollution continues at the current rate, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050.

'Around eight million tonnes of plastic makes its way into oceans each year, posing a serious threat to our natural and marine environment—experts estimate that plastic is ingested by 31 species of marine mammals and more than 100 species of sea birds,' DEFRA said.

'It shows small actions can make the biggest difference, but we must not be complacent as there is always more we can all do to reduce waste and recycle what we use,' Coffey noted.

We can all do our part in slashing or eliminating our plastic footprint.

'The plummeting plastic bag use demonstrates the huge benefits just a small change in our everyday habits can make. It means less damaging plastic finding its inevitable way into our waterways and countryside. This is a massive boon for nature and wildlife,' Andrew Pendleton of Friends of the Earth told the Guardian.

'With attention now turning to the millions of non-recyclable coffee cups that go to landfill and to oversized boxes and excess packaging as a by-product of online shopping, the government and forward-thinking businesses have a golden chance to cut waste and reduce resource use in a sensible way that consumers welcome,' he added.

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By Katie Pohlman | Business | Jul 27

Morocco Bans Plastic Bags

A plastic bag ban went into effect this month in Morocco, the second-largest plastic bag consumer after the U.S. But, officials say, its going to take some time for shops and retailers to get used to the new law.

Morocco's ban on the production and use of plastic bags went into effect July 1 after the plastic ban bill was passed by parliament in October 2015. As the July 1 deadline approached, shop owners scrambled to find and collect reusable bags. Green campaigners, AlJazeera reported, say consumers may need years to fully comply with the ban.

'It's a big cultural shift with that type of broader law,' Jennie Romer, a New York-based lawyer,' told AlJazeera. 'As long as the government has the motivation to really enforce that. There is a lot of potential. The government entity that is implementing it has to be completely on board in order to make that really happen in practice.'

Morocco uses about 3 billion plastic bags a year, according to the Moroccan Industry Ministry. The U.S. uses about 100 billion a year, according to the Earth Policy Institute, and 1 trillion are used globally per year.

The North African country has been working on banning plastic bags for years. A ban of the production and use of black plastic bags was put in place in 2009, but the bags were still being produced.

This time around, officials hope to prevent that situation by providing alternate solutions. Moulay Hafid Elalamy, industry minister and initiator of the bill, tweeted that bags made of paper and fabric will be made widely available.

Yassine Zegzouti, president of Mawarid, said changing consumer habits will be the toughest part.

'The formal sector will need four to five years to comply with the new law,' Zegzouti said. 'But the use of plastic bags is anchored in [consumer] habit. All actors need to change these habits to not have any damage in the future.'

Morocco is ranked one of the world's greenest countries, along with Costa Rica, Bhutan and Ethiopia. The country's biggest achievements come in cracking down on carbon emissions and production of solar power. It is considered a green leader among developing nations.

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By Laura Beans | Jun 19, 2013

Los Angeles Enacts Plastic Bag Ban, Strengthens Statewide Movement

Environment California [Editor's note: UPDATE—On June 26, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed LA’s historic ban on single-use...

By Lorraine Chow | Business | Jul 21

4 Billion Starbucks To-Go Cups Thrown Away Each Year ... Will Recyclable Cup Reduce This Waste?

Starbucks goes through 4 billion to-go cups annually but most of them end up in the landfill. Why? Even though these cups are mostly made of paper, these single-use items are almost never recycled or composted because they are lined with plastic.

Ninety-nine percent of paper cups in the UK do not get recycled. Flickr

Now, in somewhat of a no-brainer, the world's largest coffee chain is testing recyclable coffee cups in UK stores, the Guardian reported.

Frugalpac, the England-based company behind the cups, explains on its website that its product is made of 100 percent recycled, chemical-free paper and lined with a plastic film that can easily be removed by standard recycling facilities. These cups, which can be recycled up to seven times, can be placed in any newspaper or cardboard recycling bin. The company says the cups look and feel the same as the standard varieties.

'We are very interested in finding out more about the Frugalpac cup and we will be testing it to see if it meets our standards for safety and quality, with a view to trialling its recyclability,' a Starbucks spokesman said, according to the Guardian. No word yet on when, or if, they will be implemented stateside.

According to the Guardian, Martin Myerscough, the inventor of the Frugalpac cup, wants to help curb the 2.5 billion cups used in the UK each year of which only one in 400 are recycled.

The dismal coffee cup recycling rate led to calls for a ban or tax on disposable coffee cups in March. While the two initiatives ultimately failed, campaigners are still taking action on these environmental pesks.

British chef and environmental activist Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall will feature Frugalpac in his next War on Waste documentary on the BBC. In the documentary, Fearnley-Whittingstall explores why Britain's largest coffee chains—Starbucks, Costa and Caffe Nero—almost never recycle their mountains of discarded cups. One reason, he discovered, is that most people do not realize these cups do not get recycled or do not even recognize the problem.

Another reason, as Starbucks said in a 2014 statement, is that despite years of efforts, implementing a successful recycling program at its 24,000 stores around the world is harder than one might think:

Recycling seems like a simple, straightforward initiative but it's actually quite challenging. Our customers' ability to recycle our cups, whether at home, at work, in public spaces or in our stores, is dependent upon multiple factors, including local government policies and access to recycling markets such as paper mills and plastic processors.

Some communities readily recycle our paper and plastic cups, but with operations in 70 countries, Starbucks faces a patchwork of recycling infrastructure and market conditions. Additionally, in many of our stores landlords control the waste collection and decide whether or not they want to provide recycling. These challenges require recycling programs be customized to each store and market and may limit our ability to offer recycling in some stores.

Not only are there municipal barriers to successful recycling in many cities, but it takes significant changes in behavior to get it right. A few non-recyclable items in a recycle bin can render the entire bag unrecyclable to the hauler. For recycling to be successful, local municipalities, landlords, customers, baristas, and even adjacent businesses all have to work together to keep recyclable materials out of the landfill and non-recyclable materials out of recycling bins.

As coffee companies like Starbucks figure out how to slash their enormous coffee cup footprint, there's an easy thing you can do to help—bring your own mug.

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