San Francisco Becomes The First City to Ban Sale of Plastic Bottles

[Arachno 1D]

In a bold move toward pollution control, San Francisco has just become the first city in America to ban the sale of plastic water bottles, a move that is building on a global movement to reduce the huge amount of waste from the billion-dollar plastic bottle industry.

Over the next four years, the ban will phase out the sales of plastic water bottles that hold 21 ounces or less in public places. Waivers are permissible if an adequate alternative water source is not available

 

Violators of the ban would face fines of up to $1,000.

 

Source,,,

 

[theyarecomingforyou]

It's great that some cities are taking action against a major environmental concern. Legislation like this is important to help force companies to produce more environmentally friendly packaging.

[Ryster]

I've not read the source link so it might answer this question there, but are plastic bottles not recycled in the US? They go in our blue recycling bins here in the UK.

[Arachno 1D]

Im assuming by the way its being handled that they are overwhelmed with recycling material and want to reduce it.

[Anibal P]

I've not read the source link so it might answer this question there, but are plastic bottles not recycled in the US? They go in our blue recycling bins here in the UK.

 

They are recycled, but the hippies in Cali have decided palstic = evil and "need" to be banned, pretty sure there was not much more research done beyond that 

[FloatingFatMan]

It's great that some cities are taking action against a major environmental concern. Legislation like this is important to help force companies to produce more environmentally friendly packaging.

 

Generally, recycling something costs more than using virgin materials, with only 2 exceptions for paper and glass products. Many plastics can't even BE recycled in any cost effective way.

 

IMO, all drinks bottles of up to 750ml should be glass, and all supermarkets should provide paper bags (as is common in the US) instead of plastic.

[Skiver Veteran]

Generally, recycling something costs more than using virgin materials, with only 2 exceptions for paper and glass products. Many plastics can't even BE recycled in any cost effective way.

 

IMO, all drinks bottles of up to 750ml should be glass, and all supermarkets should provide paper bags (as is common in the US) instead of plastic.

 

I know its not much better, but I've been using the bags you can buy from Tesco/Sainsburys for a long time. Some of them are plastic but at least they get re-used on a weekly basis.

[Arachno 1D]

 

IMO, all drinks bottles of up to 750ml should be glass, and all supermarkets should provide paper bags (as is common in the US) instead of plastic.

 

Generally its a consumer led market that drives costs down hence its much much cheaper for the manufacturer to blow plastic bottles as required than having to sustain manufacturing,storage and cleaning costs using glass bottles even before production begins.

[theyarecomingforyou]

Generally, recycling something costs more than using virgin materials, with only 2 exceptions for paper and glass products. Many plastics can't even BE recycled in any cost effective way.

It's not as simple as that, as landfill is limited and its use has to be minimised. You also have to minimise the raw resource requirements, as about 3% of US petroleum use is attributed to plastics.

 

IMO, all drinks bottles of up to 750ml should be glass, and all supermarkets should provide paper bags (as is common in the US) instead of plastic.

Paper bags aren't better, as they require significantly more energy to produce, are less reusable and produce methane in landfill (a much more harmful greenhouse gas than CO2). Then there's cloth bags, which have to be used a lot more than 100 times in order to be better than a single-use plastic bag.

 

Basically, whatever we do there is a considerable environmental impact. What we need to do is reduce our consumption and avoid any unnecessary packaging, while taking steps to mitigate the impact. Legislation like this can help if it reduces consumption and pushes people towards dispensed water, especially when you consider that a lot of bottled water comes from tap water anyway (Aquafina and PureLife are from tap, as was Coca Cola's failed Dasani). It wasn't long ago that bottled water was considered extravagant and unnecessary, yet now it is consumed with little thought to the environment consequences.

[FloatingFatMan]

Paper bags aren't better, as they require significantly more energy to produce, are less reusable and produce methane in landfill (a much more harmful greenhouse gas than CO2). Then there's cloth bags, which have to be used a lot more than 100 times in order to be better than a single-use plastic bag.

 

 

Paper is infinitely more recyclable, for far less cost, than plastic is. It's also biodegradable if it doesn't get recycled.

[seta-san]

people need to figure this one thing out.

 

what is good for us is bad for the environment.

what is good for the environment is bad for us.

 

good for people

 

good for environment

 

you choose.

[Mockingbird]

Ryster, on 17 Mar 2015 - 02:49, said:

I've not read the source link so it might answer this question there, but are plastic bottles not recycled in the US? They go in our blue recycling bins here in the UK.

 

Only some potion of the plastic bottle is reusable. The rest goes in the landfill.

 

A lot of people doesn't know, but different parts of plastic bottles are actually made of different polymers.

[Draconian Guppy]

people need to figure this one thing out.

 

what is good for us is bad for the environment.

what is good for the environment is bad for us.

 

good for people

 

good for environment

 

you choose.

This is a bit extreme, yes that lifestyle pointed above, but there are ways, we just have not got to a point where that matters enough for people to care.

[seta-san]

This is a bit extreme, yes that lifestyle pointed above, but there are ways, we just have not got to a point where that matters enough for people to care.

i totally can't follow that sentence. 

[Torolol]

Awesome, the return of sharp glasses bottles in non-gun non-knifes thug fight.

[Rudy]

people need to figure this one thing out.

 

what is good for us is bad for the environment.

what is good for the environment is bad for us.

 

good for people

 

 

good for environment

 

 

you choose.

You having to pay an extra say $0.50 or even $1.00 for your drink won't change that much to be honest. But using glass instead of plastic for the bottle will make a huge difference for the environment 

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

I do not see any harm in this at all. I can only imagine that there would be places that charge an arm and a leg to fill up your own bottle with water though which would be odd. There are already a lot of places on the East Coast that are not allowing the use of plastic grocery bags as well for the same reason. People are not recycling they just throw stuff away.

[remixedcat]

paper shopping bags suck. they rip easy and are hard to hold

[blank]

paper shopping bags suck. they rip easy and are hard to hold

i drink out of old shoes.

Plastic bottles will just be replaced by something else that probably creates more pollution in the creation/processing stage. but like those new fancy hipster cars, as long as you can't see the pollution and feel better about yourself, it's okay..

That's all it seems to be about anyways.

[game_over]

It'll be fun going the local shop for some water

 

[jakem1]

Why limit the ban to water?

[theyarecomingforyou]

Why limit the ban to water?

Because they haven't found a way to install and monetise Coca Cola fountains in parks and streets.

 

Paper is infinitely more recyclable, for far less cost, than plastic is. It's also biodegradable if it doesn't get recycled.

Better in some, worse in others. They produce methane when they degrade, which is a harmful greenhouse gas; they are often made with recycled materials that consume more energy than the original product; they are less reusable; they use more resources (90% more than plastic bags) and creation more pollution (70% more than plastic bags). They aren't a solution, plus they are impractical in wet weather conditions.

 

There are other alternatives. Some plastic bags are degradable, meaning they can break down in a few years rather than a few thousand. Then there's bioplastics / cellulose bags, something I came across quite often when I was over in Italy - they're made from organic matter, though again produce methane when they break down. But there isn't any one definitive solution, as it's an extremely complex situation.

[redfish]

Paper is infinitely more recyclable, for far less cost, than plastic is. It's also biodegradable if it doesn't get recycled.

 

Most people bring their plastic bags home, store them, and use them to take out the trash. When you ban free plastic shopping bags, people just buy more trash bags, which are also plastic, so the amount of plastic in landfills isn't reduced. In the mean time, markets still give out plastic bags, they just charge something like 50 cents for them. Who wins? Supermarkets who get to make money off of selling plastic bags, and trash bag companies who get to sell more trash bags. Business wins. Not the environment.

 

On top of that, most supermarkets still give out thin plastic bags to pack produce, which, because its thin, breaks much easier, and isn't good to re-use to pack trash, and this just ends up in the trash without any use to it.

 

Focusing on plastic bottles sounds a bit more reasonable since they're not re-used, except there will be tons of more plastic products in the trash and doesn't get rid of the problem. 

 

I support efforts to reduce trash and reduce plastic content in trash, but they need to be smarter. (Btw I do bring all my plastic bottles to recycling)

[chrisj1968]

San Fran is a hippie climate where "trendy" issues are pushed through almost religiously. first they started with toilets that use less water but that ended up stinking up the city since waste got stuck in the sewers and the city pushed it through with common bleach.

 

so this begs the question now of: "what is the alternative?" 

 

[Nogib]

This is just more evidence on how I will laugh my ass off they day SF gets another major quake.  Stupid hippies are too damn smug!