San Francisco has increased efficiency in its supermarkets by eliminating the question, “paper or plastic” from checkout dialog. San Francisco is the first city in the nation to ban plastic bags from large grocery and pharmaceutical chains after widely supported legislation was passed Tuesday. About 54 grocery chains will have to switch to recyclable paper, compostable plastic bags, or durable reusable bags within about six months.

The city says the bags are responsible for littering city streets, harming wildlife, and gumming up recycling machines. The petroleum-based bags also require fossil fuels to be created, increasing our dependency on oil. 430,000 gallons of oil are needed in the production of 100 million bags. San Francisco’s large grocery chains, which will be effected by the ban, currently use 100-150 million plastic bags a year.

Jared Blumenfeld, head of the Environment Department, says; “After 10 years of plastic bag recycling in The City, we have a 1 percent recycling rate. So it’s a 99 percent failure of the bags.” The ban will move San Francisco closer to its goal of diverting 75 percent of all landfill waste by 2010. The move has gained tremendous support, and may be adopted statewide by all of California in the future.

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