And time has come, at least for Fairfax – to ban those ridiculous plastic bags at grocery stores!

As of Monday, April 4th, the city of Fairfax became the first Marin County city to ban the use of plastic bags in grocery stores, restaurants and retail stores! These establishments now have to provide recyclable paper or reusable bags to their customers, or they will be fined.

Did you know Bay Area residents use about 3.8 billion plastic bags every year and that on the average the bag is used for only 12 minutes? I was shopping at our local Safeway in Mill Valley yesterday, and I was amazed at how many plastic bags were used for the customers before me. I’ll bet most of these end up in the garbage as soon as they are emptied at home.

I was surprised to learn that, although California has been trying to recycle plastic bags for 15 years now, it is estimated that ONLY 5% of these bags are actually recycled! And, an astonishing million of these bags end up in the Bay each year, according to Save the Bay, a local organization committed to keeping the Bay clean.

I do hope more and more Marin cities will follow suit soon in banning the plastic bags. But what about the paper bags? There will be more trees cut down to make them, and we know most of them will not be recycled and will end up in the trash, as well.

So the best thing we can do is to go shopping with our cloth or reusable bags. If you don’t already use them, you can purchase them at your local grocery stores – Safeway, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s – or check out www.reusablebags.com for these and other environmentally friendly products.


Posted By: Judy Noyes