Debbie Schlussel: Biodegradable Village People: America's Non-Closeted City Bans Plastic Bags
Well, I'm glad to see they've set their plastic priorities straight.
The city whose health insurance covers sex change operations (including plastic surgery) is now the city which bans plastic bags for consumers.
Score yet another one for the enviroNazis.
San Francisco's Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 to require the city's grocery stores and pharmacies to ban conventional plastic bags and use only biodegradable plastic bags or recyclabe paper bags.
If you live or shop in San Francisco, watch for the price of all of your food essentials and prescription drugs to go up. The fact is that biodegradable bags are not cheap. They cost from six to 10 times the amount of conventional plastic bags and double to more than triple the cost of paper bags. Businesses will pass that on to the consumer.
And it won't stop waste. It's not like people who live, frequent, or shop in San Francisco don't have plastic bags from other cities and suburbs, or get plastic bags from clothing, electronics, and other types of stores, which aren't covered by the silly measure.
And have fun carrying biodegradable bags made of corn and potato starches in the rain--they'll melt and your purchases will roll around on the ground. That'll hardly eliminate waste. It will only increase it. Way to go, San Francisco.
San Francisco is famous for many firsts--most of the contemporary ones are embarrassing firsts. And this is no exception.
Rice-A-Roni, no longer the "San Francisco treat"--now it's your fragile grocery bag.
Posted by Debbie on March 28, 2007 11:12 AM to Debbie Schlussel