BYOB takes on a whole new meaning when it comes to the environment. With just a few days until the annual California Coastal Cleanup, activists are pushing for shoppers to bring their own bags.
You need to look no further than the Bay to see why. Save the Bay estimates that 250,000 end up in the San Francisco Bay every year. Some areas are wosrse than others, and today, the group came out with a top ten list of Bay trash hot spots. "We're calling on more cities, all cities around the San Francisco Bay to ban single use plastic bags and single use paper bags," says Executive Director David Lewis.
Since 2007, San Francisco has banned plastic bags and San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkharimi says the clock is ticking for other cities and counties to follow suit. "It's time municipal governments step up and do everything they possibly can about the pervasive degradation to our environment, and the plastics is absolutely one of the most conspicious villians in this whole course of action."
The plastics industry is against the ban, claiming the added costs to ban the bags will get passed on to shoppers. Mirkharimi sees it as a moral ogligation. "Polluter must pay, that has never happened before we introduced thse laws. Now it's important it become part of the mainstream." If that doesn't happen, he fears we'll all end up paying with a dirtier and potentially more dangerous Bay.
