Did you happen to notice the big news about plastic grocery bags in the news today? I would bet that it's not all that often that something as mundane and everyday as plastic grocery bags makes its way to the national headlines, but today it sure did. Why, you ask? Well, as it turns out, the mayor of San Francisco, California, has promoted legislation that would call for grocery stores and convenience to ban the use of plastic grocery bags throughout the city. It appears that the legislation has passed and the ban will proceed in six months time. What really caught my eye about the whole article was the impact that this ban with potentially have on the city's consumption of petroleum. The ban of plastic grocery bags in a city where nearly two hundred million of them are used each year would provide a decrease in petroleum consumption of well over four hundred fifty thousand barrels each year...and that's just the amount for one city in the United States. Imagine the impact that it would have on the petroleum industry should an entire state, like California for example, that has the highest population of the whole country, ended up banning the use of these types of grocery bags. That would be a tremendous decrease in petroleum usage. Likewise, there are many grocery stores that are already decreasing the use or even totally discontinuing the use of brown paper grocery bags as well, in favor of using reusable cloth bags for grocery purchases. Not only would this method cut down on petroleum usage, but it would also save trees. I've never really thought much about all of this grocery bag stuff, but it sure would appear that we waste many resources, although some of them are recyclable, in our everyday grocery purchases. Multiple that by everyone across just our own country, and you can see the numbers start to skyrocket. Now that I think of it, I recall that one of our local grocery stores now asks "is plastic OK?"...rather than the traditional "paper or plastic?". I suppose that stores in this area are less concerned with petroleum consumption and more concerned with saving local trees. I think that there is even a discount grocery store in the area that will no longer provide bags for customers but rather encourages customers to bring their own recycled bags or purchase new bags. By making the grocery bags an extra purchase item, they are hoping to discourage wastefulness and encourage recycling among their customers...while saving themselves a hefty amount of money in the process.

So, how do you think that this is all going to go? Do you think that the ban will work out in San Francisco. The article that I read actually cited instances of certain places attempting to carry out similar legislation, but in most cases, the efforts failed. Most grocery and convenience store customers are looking for just that...convenience, rather than consciousness about the benefits of recycling...especially when they are in a hurry. It just seems like a real toss up to me. I would love to see the efforts of such individuals or cities succeed, but I just don't know how feasible the effort is going to be in today's fast-paced wasteful society. I'd love to hear your opinions on the effort and to know whether or not the area that you live in has taken similar strides to combat either high petroleum use or deforestation by resorting to measures such as those that we've been talking about above in this post. It will surely be an interesting comparative study to see which areas of the country have taken particular measures owing to their individual regional or local interests. Write to me!