The obnoxiously pervasive plastic shopping bags that can be seen floating in the air during a windy day may soon go by the wayside as Los Angeles city officials are now considering a ban on the bags. In their place would be “compostable” bags, which are biodegradable and significantly less harmful to the environment.
Following in the footsteps of San Francisco’s ban on the biologically harmful bags, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors was scheduled to consider the measure banning the bags yesterday, according to an article in the April 10 issue of the Los Angeles Times.
The proposed legislation comes amid San Francisco’s decision last month to disallow the use of plastic bags at major supermarkets to help promote recycling – a move several other cities abroad made a while ago, argued San Francisco legislator Ross Mirkarimi, who was one of the major proponents of the bill, according to a March 28 Reuters article.
According to the L.A. Times article, the problem with introducing such legislation in Los Angeles is that the environment in Southern California is vastly different from that of Northern California, and these compostable bags would not be as easily absorbed by the environment as they are in the Bay Area.
Plastic shopping bags are infamous for the destruction they inflict on the environment, especially marine life. They are eyesores wafting through the air on a breezy day and are detrimental to the environment in general. But this legislative move isn’t the right one.
If these new bio-friendly sacs aren’t fit for the arid Southern California environment, then there needs to be other solutions. One such solution could possibly require that people bring their own bags and sell canvas ones for forgetful shoppers. Stores should give customers an incentive for using plastic bags.
Places like IKEA punish their customers, in a sense, by charging them 5 cents for using the hefty IKEA bags instead of bringing their own. In France, customers are expected to bring their own bags and no plastic ones are even provided. If a customer doesn’t remember to bring their own bags, canvas ones are available for purchase at the store.
This isn’t the first time this proposed legislation has appeared before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. According to the L.A. Times article, a few years ago it appeared before the city council, but they instead decided that the plastic bags would be accepted in curbside recycling.
This campus can immediately become more contentious of its consumption by charging students a minimal fee for using plastic bags, giving incentives for its consumers to use their own bags and (on a similar environmentally-minded note) asking students if they need a receipt (which many [but not all] campus stores do).
Compostable bags, though, are not the answer. These community legislators’ hearts are in the right places. Los Angeles is certainly a city associated with consumption, wastefulness and environmental disregard, but this is not the way to curb this behavior. Requiring businesses to slowly phase out of using bags is a viable answer to our plastics problem. Compostable bags are not.
