San Francisco's landmark ban on common plastic shopping bags last month inspired pundits and politicians to predict that other cities would soon follow suit. But what worked there might prove tough to do in the Los Angeles area.
That's because the region -- where plastic bags often litter roadsides, clog storm drains, kill marine life and become an airborne nuisance in windy weather -- lacks the capacity to process the biodegradable plastic bags that San Francisco now requires of large grocery and drugstores, environmental experts say.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday April 12, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 58 words Type of Material: Correction
Plastic bags: An article in Tuesday's California section about the difficulty of banning plastic grocery bags in Los Angeles County misstated the number of bags that are discarded each year. The article stated that 19 million bags were disposed of statewide, including about 6 million in L.A. County. The correct figures are 19 billion and 6 billion, respectively.
In fact, biodegradable -- or compostable -- bags could even contaminate the city of Los Angeles' recycling system because they taint other kinds of recyclable plastic when thrown out together in curbside bins.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to take up a measure today that proposes looking into how the county should deal with plastic-bag consumption. It will also weigh the pros and cons of a ban similar to the one San Francisco supervisors passed in late March.
Any policy adopted by the supervisors would apply to unincorporated areas of the county and possibly cities with which the county contracts services.
In the city of Los Angeles, a plastic-bag ban was considered a few years ago. But the City Council chose instead to simply include the bags in regular curbside recycling. Some cities, such as Malibu, have barred grocery stores, restaurants and other food outlets from using expanded polystyrene packaging, such as foam cups or clamshell takeout boxes, but haven't taken action on bags.
No one disputes that plastic-bag use -- and subsequent waste -- is a problem. Californians dispose of an estimated 19 million plastic bags a year. L.A. County residents probably contribute about 6 million of those, experts said.
But if the Los Angeles area wants to emulate its eco-friendly neighbor to the north and nix standard plastic bags, it might have to settle for paper or canvas.
"We're all for any community that wants to pursue a ban on plastic bags," said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, a nonprofit group based in Sacramento.
"But if I was going to Los Angeles or any other communities that are thinking they might take this approach, we would propose they look at a straight-out ban on plastic bags" -- including compostable plastic bags, he said.
