UPDATED: BLOG: Should we 'bag' non-biodegradable plastic shopping bags in Portland?

asking the grocery stores to cut back is not going to work imo

I would love to see the biodegradable bags used, even if I had to pay extra for them!

Ban the plastic bags and tax all but the reusable bags.

For some time many retailers have sold their own versions of reusable bags (e.g. canvas or some poly weave) for $5-$10, which would seem to be a relatively hefty price for a lot of people. But in the past month or so I have noticed that both Whole Foods and New Seasons have been selling them for only $1 or $2. I'm not sure if it's a loss leader for them or not, but I can't help but assume they're thinking that the more of these they can get out there, even at an initial loss, the fewer plastic (or paper) ones they would have to give out, and in the end, they're going to save money. So perhaps these retailers are not representative of the grocery industry overall.

Why shouldn't customers pay the costs of recycling the bags? It costs more, so we should pay more. I say ban the bags city wide, let people reuse or use canvas. It's really not that much of an inconvienence.

The last time I checked, I pay a pretty penny for garbage service.

How about I throw whatever I want in the garbage and you focus and things police and roads?

Definitely get rid of the plastic bags.

And while we are at it, let's lobby the legislature to extend the bottle bill to cover plastic water bottles! It's impossible to walk through the cities parks and forests today without seeing dozens of "healthy" empty water bottles along the trails.

A tax is superior to a ban.
There are occasions when I buy something juicy.
A plastic bag is just the thing to keep my cloth bag from getting stained.
A small charge for a bag is worth it then.

Ban those bags and what could I do:
not buy the chicken?
Get blood all over my knapsack, other groceries, and down my back?
Use a paper bag and have the bottom fall out when it gets wet?
Buy a box of trash bags and use one of those? Do you think I would remember to carry one of those around with me?

Please push for the gently discouraging tax.

Dear Sam,

I lived in Europe for a few years. It was refreshing to see people in Europe assuming responsibility for transporting their groceries. Some bring their own collaspible carts to the store, while others bring their own strong, mesh bags to carry groceries to their homes.

As you know, Sam, many other countries shop each day for groceries, so the food is fresh and yummy. So, they go to the store, or marketplace, quite often. I have always felt, that it would be a fine thing for us to accomplish if we could inspire our citizens to have their own carts/bags and end these problems with stolen/borrowed shopping carts and plastic bags. Placing a probibition on non-recycled plactic would be a start. Launching a Metro-Wide...even State-Wide....program of cart/bag awareness and change of our habits would be great. It might take a few years to accomplish a change, but the result would be worth it. The cost to the public should be minimal....just purchasing and using their own carts and mesh/canvas bags. It is time for Americans to take care of these problems.

Retailers might think about providing/selling these carts/bags to their customers, during the transition years. Don't penalize retailers with some sort of tax, but, rather, encourage them to help with these solutions at the source: the stores!!! Public education and providing the tools (carts/bags) at reasonable costs will be great for them, too, since they have such expense with shopping carts being stolen and bags they already supply to customeers (plastic).

Government should just be the lead person in this program, guiding, leading by example, encouraging, but not taxing, and not being a heavy hand on another industry. Just let government show everyone how it is to be done, then wait for a few years for the old ways to fade and the new ways to become the standard.

This is the time to do something about it. The rest of the world shows that it can be solved and a better system developed. We might as well begin here and show the USA how to do it.

Getting rid of plastic bags (not to mention water bottles!) is a "sooner than later" mandate. But with so much happening in the biofuel and other arenas like this initiative picking up steam, it is unlikely that bio fuel growers and bag suppliers can generate the necessary volume except on a planned, and longer term basis. So we should commit in principle to do it NOW but establish a timeline to get everyone on board in the community, and so it can actually be accomplished with supplies. Paper is renewable and usually gets recycled: should be permitted as an option like it is now.

Tax the things you don't want (plastic bags) and subsidize the things you do (phase in of biodegradable bags or free canvas or recycled shopping bags for consumers). Ireland did this country-wide, seems like we can do it here.

I'm with Anthony above. No ban on plastic bags. How about we ban burning soldiers in effigy and protesters wearing masks. There are more important issues to consider.

Is there really nothing more important to deal with at the City than this? Incredible.

It's particularly galling that, out of one side of our mouth we say we're small business friendly, but out the other side comes a tax proposal that will place an undue collection and accounting burden on retailers, most of whom are small businesses. And did anyone consider for even a second that those who can least afford what amounts to a $0.15/bag of grocery tax - or whatever the number is - will also pay a heavy price to satisfy our seemingly endless quest for political correctness in the face of common sense? Then to suggest the revenues be used for "environmental good works"! Well - forgive the cynicism, but are we short of city-paid bike & ped lobbyists these days?!?

Bag Tax! Call it a gas tax, impose it on non-food purchases parcels only, dedicate the revenue to basic infrastructure and transportation maintenance, and maybe I'll rethink my profoundly negative view of this policy initiative. Maybe.

Two things. A tax would educate people that there is a price to be paid for using non renewable resourses. Another is what a city in Canada did. They were frustrated with plastic bags due to most of the population had cloth bags but always forgot them when they went to the store. So they printed (in big, red letters) on the plastic bags...."I forgot my cloth bag". It worked well.

I bring my own bag.
LL Bean has a great Boat & Tote bag in a variety of colors, the large is comfortable to carry and holds a lot w/o me worrying it will break and I get compliments on it everytime I use it. I love it so much I'm going to get at least 1 more because sometimes I buy more groceries than it can hold.

Yes, renewable bags are great. I recycle my paperbags and plastic bags, but have gone to renewable bags even at department stores. They look at you funny, but it works. So lets reduce our plastic in all shopping, not just grocery.

The story makes it sound like the issue deals solely with grocers. I am not sure whether it also includes retailers.

About the grocers, it seems like many of the local stores or the smaller ones automatically bag with paper. This is my experience at New Seasons, Trader Joes and the Beaumont Market.
However the larger corporate stores, like Fred Meyer and QFC tend to bag with the plastic. I imagine it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for such stores to buy biodegradable plastic bags.

About retailers, I am not sure if this rule should cover them. People have to go to the grocery store all the time to buy food, and so they tend to bring home more bags from grocers. Meanwhile, they do not have to shop at retail stores as much and might not bring home as many bags.
If the rule applys to retailers, this could get messy. There is the issue about small businesses -- if Grand and Benedicts or Uline carries an affordable, recycleable bag, it might be okay. But then there also is an issue with big stores and whether their bags are recycleable. Like is the Nordstrom silver bag recycleable? Or how about garment bags from a suit or dress store? Such stores provide needed jobs. Retail businesses might not want to open in Portland because of bag laws.

Don't ban the bags.
1. IMO it isn't a topic the city should be worrying about
2. Let the customer choose
3. And for my household....we use ALL of the bags we get: for garbage and lunch bags. Yep they eventually end up in the landfill, but are re-used and displace another plastic or paper bag that I would have had to purchase!

If the city does act, start with voluntary actions first, ie ask the retailers to begin using/offering biodegradable plastic bags or simply go back to the paper or plastic question (my grocery store doesn't ask anymore...)

Change the language on Option 4 in the poll and I'll vote for it. The suggestion to use tax proceeds for both "reducing bag use" AND "environmental projects" is far too ambiguous. Let's keep it focused on the issue: reducing the waste and litter from shopping bags. Almost any project or initiative could be marketed as "environmental".

And let's remember the socio-economic side of the issue: a tax on bags would impact low-income citizens the most. Reducing bag use and waste needs to direct part of any new tax to help make reusable bags more accessible to low-income folks.

And whatever happened to paper made from something other than trees? Hemp grows fast and has none of the controversial effects of its cannabis cousin.

1. When I rented a house in France they furnished a basket to take to the market for the groceries. Canvas bags and other reusable containers also work. If the French and other folks can do it why can't we? We only have bad habits where this is concerned; change is what bothers people, and we need to get over it.

First a clarification - most plastic bags (as well as other plastic products) are made from natural gas, not from petroleum, so this is less an import issue than, say, gas for ginormous SUV's.

I think we have the resources here to work on both sides of the issue. With master recyclers, the city's OSD bureau, etc., we can do far more to educate citizens to use reusable bags. Why not send crews of volunteers to some of the big stores and malls on Saturday with free cloth bags? (and to schools, events, etc.)

Then, as a Master Recycler, I have seen at the plastics round-ups how much effort many people make to recycle plastics. As natural gas and oil prices rise, new products are developed for recycled materials, and markets improve for the recycled materials. (This is also a great crowd to educate about reducing use.)

I think we can do A LOT before we start to think about banning/taxing plastic bags.

of course I would love to see us as a community be more evironmentallly friendly. I am very proud of our city and state for the ban of styro cups and the recycling. I am concerned about the fact that if there is a ban on the plastic bags or a tax how this will impact our lower income community. Many folks use these plastic bags as garbage bags in their homes. So in a sense they are reusing. It is hard enough for folks to pay for food, but to have a tax passed on to them by either a direct tax for the bags or by store owners passing on the tax through increasing prices this will be yet again adding another burden on our lower income community- our working class community, students, seniors, disabled, those on fixed incomes. I would like to see some effort be made in providing canvass bags for free or really reduced rate for folks, if there will be some type of ban or tax.

I don't have an answer but I am concerned that the buck will be pass in an unfair way. We must remember that some of our literally can't pay more for essentials than they already are, but it doesn't mean we should come up with creative innovative ways to support our environment and community as a whole.
thanks

Having traveled recently in rural China, I was blown away by the number of plastic bags trapped in trees, blowing along the road side, etc.

Paper beats plastic.

Good idea

Sam’s letter: Just 14 plastic shopping bags contain enough embodied petroleum energy to drive a car 1 mile.
JK: I clicked on your link and got a 120 page book from down under. A word search for petro turned up no hint of where that claim came from.

Please provide evidence, as many of those claims appear to be pure BS.

A car takes 5572 BTU per vehicle-mile (2003 data see: DebunkingPortland.com/Transit/Table2.11.htm)

A gallon of gas is 125,000 BTU, so that is 4% of a gallon. 4% of a gallon costs 4% of $2.50 = $0.10. So you are trying to tell me that a bag has 10 cents worth of energy in it but costs less than one cent?

Give me a break - you don’t unquestioningly accept BS from the Republicans, why do unquestioningly accept BS from the enviros - they both lie.

Thanks
JK

In so many stores, it seems the clerks are getting paid to give you more bags! They'll put 3 items in a bag, double bag, put individual items in a plastic bag then the whole thing in another bag.

Clothing store folks will often wrap clothes in tissue paper (with their name printed on it, so it can't even be reused), and put it in a bag. I once had a clothing store owner refuse to sell me something unless I let her wrap it in tissue AND put it in a bag.

Most retailers will respond to one thing - their pocketbook. With a tax that makes a difference, they would be more likely to train their clerks and realize that they don't need to waste so much. Economists call this internalizing the externalities.

I personally like getting my groceries bagged in plastic because I get to reuse the bags for my garbage bags instead of buying expensive bags specifically made for garbage disposal. While I do support the idea of using cloth bags, people still need plastic bags to put their garbage in, so why not focus on the REUSING part of the motto "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" instead of purely banning plastic bags? If we switch to cloth for bagging our groceries, people are still going to be buying plastic garbage bags.
Is there a difference between the way plastic shopping bags and plastic garbage bags are made that makes one worse for the environment than the other?

I'm with Anthoy on this issue. It seems that we spend more time worrying about envirnmental issues than about schools, police, and fire.

With regard to the "bag" issue...I for one am frustrated with our "leaders" so called solutions to every problem is a ban or tax. Why don't we try education or leading by example? Why not thoroughly research what other countries have done to be successful? I bet some of the countries that have been quoted in this blog simply didn't ban or tax. I'm sure there were many other steps they took before that one!

You don't know how glad I am to see this finally. The recyclers in most cities in Oregon will not accept plastic bags curbside. We keep getting notifications in our mail saying Gladstone and others do not take plastic bags curbside for recycling. This is a huge problem. Because the recyclers don't want all items dumped into their recycle bins together. They want the items in their bins separated in paper bags.

We get our groceries online due to physical limitations. We do not have access to a lot of paper bags. Also everyone we know prefer using plastic bags as well.

Paper bags when it rains crumble so it does the recycling companies no good that way to keep it separate either. Due to all of this the recyclers aren't happy and most of us aren't happy either.

A plastic bag need to be made that CAN be recycled once and for all to stop all this nonsense. YES BAN the plastic bags please and soon, until these grocery companies produce a better alternative.
Mike in Gladstone Oregon, near Portland.

Lets just pay a small fee if we want biogradable plastic bags. Everyone will do it, or we'll use paper instead. Its very simple. But we need to get rid of these non recyclable plastic bags completely eventally.

All the grocery companies need to offer recyclable plastic bags for a small fee and they have so many years to remove all the other plastic bags. If Oregon doesn't make a stand like this, they will never remove their non biogradable bags.

Well, if San Francisco did it, then it MUST be great. They gave us Jane Fonda, errr, I mean Nancy Pelosi.

Gore booed, heckled by students at Canadian University - Protesters shouted: 'What about your swimming pools?'...

I'm with Mike on one point, we really need to be able to turn our grocery bags curbside, the recycle companies need to be more flexible on this.

I just don't know if it should be all or nothing, but I do agree that there needs to be some sort of time limit on this situation or the grocery companies will never replace their plastic bags.

What I don't understand is why are biodegradable bags so expensive? Surely the chemicals taken to make normal plastic bags can't be cheap. Why do they have to use trees? There are so many inexpensive grasses and such available that grow really fast that I'm sure they could use something out there instead of trees by now. What about using some sort of corn starch product. We all know how corn starch can be made into all kinds of biodegradable things and even has clear properties, there always looking for things to do with unusable corn. Seems to me, all that is lacking is for the grocery companies to get together to research this on their own. They could still keep the cost of our bags down after they figure it out. I'm not going to be very happy if they are charging me a lot for plastic bags considering I am buying their groceries.

I agree with Maryann that we need a time limit on getting the plastic bags out of the stores completely or they never will. The Oregon legislature needs to pass some sort of law regarding this. This is Oregon, lets get this started.

Channel 6???

Please, please, please, turn this into the higher ups in the Oregon Legislature, or for the City of Portland. Whomever has jurisdiction to pass a law to help with this. Many of us think about plastic bast and how they are filling our landfills everytime we use one. Thank you for dealing with this big topic.

Aaron

plastic bags I mean.

I see the value in following SF's recent ban, however it may end up as much of an irony as the styrofoam ban of the 70's. If in fact the City supports "saving the planet", why then are they and other government entities (schools & hospitals) exempt from the ban. What's the say... "Do as we say.. not as we do". If in fact Sam thinks this is such a great idea, why doesn't the City lead by example and ban styrofoam use altogether, instead of picking on the tax paying public!

Great comments on a subject that has irritated me for years. Plastic bags of all types according to "Modern Plastics Mag"(available on line) are used at the rate of 1500 bags per American family of four. That seems like a lot to me, but I am sure the number is huge.They take an eternity to decompose and we use them for only minutes.
I have tried reusing plastic bags, I've used canvas bags to haul my groceries, I go back to the store with a handful of bags to reuse, all good ways to reduce usage. In the end though it is just futile. If everyone would do it maybe it would be effective, but everyone won't. So what to do?
There is an alternative product that compares favorably to petrol plastic and that is biodegradable starch based plastic. The resin can be made from any type of starch, corn, potatoe, rice, etc. And, it can be made from non-food grade starchy vegetables.
Cereplast, a company that operates in California has been in the starch based plastic resin business for several years and is really starting to take off. They have a great website with a lot of info on this issue. Cereplast does not produce finished products, but supplies the resin that can be made into extrudable products like dishes, bowls and flatware, flat formed material that can be made into trays, and blown film that can be made into clear bags for groceries or any sheet purpose. When these products hit the land fill they decay in a matter of months.
So why aren't they everywhere? Resin cost has not been the biggest problem. Producing biodegradable resins that will run seamlessly in the end product manufacturers equipment has been a huge problem. But it is being solved.
What the biodegradable plastics industry needs is a little help at the end user level. Putting a tax on petrol plastic packaging, bags and trays, and no tax on the biodegradable starch based plastics would be a big boost to this industry. Once we start getting rid of petrol plastic in one area of our lives and replace it with a more evironmentally sound product, who knows where it will end. Maybe all the petrol plastic can be replaced? Just a thought.

I think the exact question should be if we should tax the non-biodegradable bags (only). With this tax, stores and retailers that want to give away free (plastic) bags would be more likely to choose those that are made out of biodegradable kinds of plactics or paper/canvas. This tax would need to be established at a level that will make the price difference between "good" and "bad" go away, or higher, with the tax revenue dedicated to recycling efforts.

Tax *biodegradable* plastic bags (and make the tax inflation-indexed so that we don't have a problem in the future like we do with the now-too-small bottle tax). Use part of the tax to ensure that poor folks can get good cloth bags. Use another part of the tax to lobby Oregon legislators to legalize hemp production so that hemp paper and hemp cloth bags can replace the traditional paper ones. Hemp paper/cloth is both more durable and less environmentally destructive than tree products. Use another part of the tax to recycle the biodegradable bags where possible. Just some ideas, so let's hear criticism!

This is a complex issue, that needs in depth research *before* decisions are made. Opinions on a blog are nice, but are hardly sufficient to make decisions impacting an entire city. A quick search reveals these claims regarding a downside to the biodegradable bags

* Bag littering could easily increase as people start to believe that biodegradable bags are less harmful to the environment and will disappear quickly it takes at least 18 months for most to breakdown.

* Mixing of biodegradable bags in recycling systems for conventional plastic bags creates a sorting nightmare and can render entire batches of recyclable plastic useless.

* A similar amount of energy is used for production and transportation of biodegradable bags as for regular disposable plastic bags.

* Water, soil, and crop contamination could result from the use of compost with chemical residues from biodegraded bags. For more click here http://www.deh.gov.au/industry/waste/biodegradable/chapter10.html

And I've heard no one provide data on how much total energy it takes to produce these biodegradable bags...not just the manufacturing and transportation of the bags...but the energy embodied in the materials, such as corn, to produce them. Corn production is petroleum resource intensive. As with ethanol production from corn, the consequence of petroleum use in raw material production must be factored in to make sensible comparisons.

Thank you Sam for bringing this issue up! I'm in favor of a ban on non-biodegradable bags. I recycle the plastic bags I can't avoid, but would like to know that if I have to, the bag I'm using won't outlive me in a landfill!

This is good example of how government looks, uh, less-than credible.

We have plastic bags to save the trees the paper bags were killing.

Which, by the way, are biodegradable.

THEN, you post a poll that allow for no 'go back to the way it was' option, no 'other' option with a text box for commentary.

So you DO get the results you want to pass along as a press release later.

But not everybody's buying what you're selling.

Another feel good proposal - start addressing issues that accually matter. roads, police, sewer, homeless problems, meth. rather than telling people what they can & cant do why dont you place a 5 cent bounty on the bags and then all the homeless will clean them up for a really cheap rate

Every day I scoop my cat's litter into a plastic grocery bag and put it into the trash. If you ban these bags, I will just have to buy other plastic bags for this purpose. I will throw them in the trash as well. Come to think of it, I have no need for dozens of paper bags lying around my house and will throw them away also.

Do not take away my cat poop bags.

I've already left this idea on this site, but I'll say it again. I think that a distinct reusable grocery bag for the city of Portland that many people around the city would use would serve to show the general public how much sense it makes to use renewable shopping bags. The bags themselves can have the Portland city seal, and on the other side, Portland: Reducing, Reusing, Recycling. The center of sustainability. We could have some sort of contest to come up with the final design.

The extremely simple solution to this entire issue is for everyone to immediately begin using canvas bags. It is an utter atrocity that our attitude of “give me convenience or give me death” has even allowed for the ridiculous invention of disposable bags to carry our groceries such absurdly short distances. I’ve been using the same canvas bags for 12 years. If you consider the fact that 9 plastic bags have enough non-renewable petroleum to fuel a car for one mile, imagine the impact you can have by never using one again. Twenty years from now, the invention and widespread use of plastic bags will be considered one of the many grave mistakes of the 20th century. This issue is much larger than people realize. And, paper bags are no better. Canvas bags are the only sensible solution to this problem. If you forget to bring them, then you should only buy what you can carry with your two hands. It’s time for us to grow up and abandon are lazy, self-destructive habits
and start caring about future generations.

Ban those goddamn bags. Waste is a problem that won't resolve itself without legislation. People are too lazy to incorporate changes into their own lives, and our economic system doesn't seem to feel the pressures of sustainability and environmental quality. We've got to force some issues and I think this is one.

I personally hope you do something about these!! Then when all the state sees that Portland is taking a step in the right direction, smaller communities like mine will take notice, hopefully!
I do not think these are more convenient, nor that the store "gives them away".
We are paying for these! Since we are paying for these I would like another way of dealing with our groceries. I would be willing to pay for a tote bag, of course bigger then I have seen thus far, to tote home the ten or more miles, our groceries. We are not even asked if we want paper bags anymore!!

We have so many of these dang bags that we are sick of them! We do not want to burn them, and we do not want to throw them in the garbage.....So we reuse them, but I still feel reusing them is good, but in the end they still end up in our landfills!

So please Portland ban these things and show all of Oregon it can be done! Thank you for the article!

At one time, Oregon was the leader in saving our enviroment. Now, we are so far behind that we are going backwards. This is a great idea. Paper or re-usable.

I think this problem, among many other environmental crisis, can be resolved by the use of hemp. Hemp is a renewable resource that can be turned into a plastic-type bag and a paper-type bag at a reasonable cost. It's versatility is astounding. Paper bags can only be recycled 3-4 times, while hemp can be recycled 7-10. Old bags could be turned into clothes, paper, or even buildings and cars. Hemp also helps restore land that has been destroyed from harmful agriculture techniques. The answer is hemp.

While Hemp would be a mighty step in a more positive direction we should be striving for even more revolutionary solutions. What’s better than using energy to create a more eco-friendly bag? Not using any energy at all! Most of us could search our domiciles and find some kind of permanent carrying device that could easily be used to transport our groceries the pathetic distances they need to be transported. Or, at the very least, invest in a few canvas bags that will serve you and the entire ecosystem for the rest of your life (possibly your grandchildren and maybe their children too). It’s time we realize that wasting energy in finding less damaging alternatives to our gross obsession with convenience is not good enough. We need to begin utilizing the easy solutions that permanently reduce waste and energy consumption.

Plastic bags represent the ultimate waste (only because they are more pervasive than plastic water bottles). They are a problem to store, to recycle and are not often reused. When reused, their contents don't degrade either. I'm all for eliminating them and encouraging recyclable paper or reusable cloth. Sure, it's an inconvenience. We need to get used to making less convenient choices now. The alternatives in the future will be even less convenient.

Instead of wasting energy by shipping our garbage to eastern Oregon, to bury in a landfill, how about converting it into usable energy here in our metro area?

http://www.startech.net/plasma.html

What ever is done must NOT increase the price of groceries or require grocers charge customers for bags. It seems the current powers and political agendas at City Hall and PDC are more concerned about catering to the affluent and subsidizing boutique grocery stores with tax breaks instead of attempting to keep food prices low for low and moderate income people, and those who shop at places like Winco and other discount grocery stores. Even the City’s unrealistic ethanol mandate has an effect on increasing food prices, yet the council seems unconcerned and unwilling to listen to the debate.

Has anyone given a thought to the hidden costs of transporting the paper bags vs plastic bags (or how about the increased pollution making them...yes production uses more electricty and pollutes more). Paper bags weigh more, and you can't fit as many in a truck as you can plastic bags. Yes they are petroleum based, but what about the increased amount of gas you would be using transporting the bags to the stores? Personally I bought a kitchen garbage can that uses the plastic bags I get from safeway, so I use all the bags from my grocery and other shopping as garbage bags. This saves on the amount of plastic bags being used for garbage bags. Is the city going to enact a plastic garbage bag ban too?

Has anyone given a thought to the hidden costs of paper bags. Transportation and Production. Paper bags weigh more, and you can't fit as many in a truck (paper bags are about 4-10x as thick as plastic bags due to the paper being weaker). Yes they are petroleum based, but what about the increased amount of gas you would be using transporting the bags to the stores? Producing paper bags uses more electricity and produces more pollution per bag. Personally I bought a kitchen garbage can that fits the plastic bags I get from Safeway, so I use all the bags from my grocery and other shopping as garbage bags. This saves on the amount of plastic bags being used for garbage bags. Lets try to think what will produce less pollution overall, since that is what the city is saying this ban will do.

No don't ban the bags.

You want to use paper? Use paper. You want to bring your own bags? Go right ahead. Boycott stores if you like. Nag your neighbors, harangue your relatives, lecture your friends; but leave the government out of it.

We do not need another nanny law.

ooh, ooh, lets be even more like san francisco. we already have the open drug & alcohol use, homeless deficating in doorways, criminals running free,and corupt city officials trying to force thier agendas down our throats. if thats what floats your boat then move there. this was once a great state that had a striving economy driven by natural resources but that has been destroyed under the disguise of "environmental protection". so do you think it is good for the environment when forrest's burn out of control and release tons of smoke into the atmosphere. give oregon back to the working man and his family and stop pounding us with your false religion. Again, move to san fran, im sure they would be more than happy to recieve your pounding.

Did you know that biodegradable bags decompose on land (in landfills, when introduced to proper decomposition), but they don’t biodegrade in the ocean? Oceanographers often find whole or fragmented plastic bags floating in current-less portions of the ocean, often being mistaken for plankton by larger fish and organisms and choking them.
(see: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0902_030902_plasticbags.html)

So the question becomes simply plastic or not?

I personally believe that paper products don’t have as much of an impact on the environment—they are easily recycled, and increasing amounts of paper products are made from cottonwood tree farms (which can be seen throughout the Willamette valley).

And I do agree with most of you, canvas is the best option.

What do I put my kitty turds in when I scoop the poop...

I think Sam Adams doesn't have enough work to do running the transportation bureau. Now he isn't happy containing himself with screwing up the transportation system with hare-brained ideas completely detached from what working people need (despite his hollow claims to represent them). His explanation that eliminating plastic bags reduces dependence on petroleum and is greener is laughable and disingenuous. A real problem that no one disputes - yet he ignores - is the massive waste of gas and increased pollution that directly result from transit policies he supports that force unnecessary automobile idling, all because of his political view that labels all cars "bad." Without this antipathy toward cars, we'd have a transportation bureau that focussed on ensuring smooth, safe driving with minimal stops rather than one that wants driving to be difficult and painful.
Further, it's no surprise that Sam is leaning toward a tax instead of a ban. In his political worldview, there is no problem that can't be solved by simply imposing a new tax or levy on the public, since taking money from the public always solves every problem. What is clear from this latest proposal and his track record is that he is trying to make up for not getting to be student body president in high school. Too bad he now has real power over our pocketbooks. I hope the voters remember thi