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San Francisco to be first US city to ban plastic bags
Wed Mar 28, 3:04 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - San Francisco is to become the first US city to ban plastic supermarket bags in a bid to help save the environment, city officials said Wednesday.
Lawmakers in the northern Californian city of around 800,000 people passed a bill late Tuesday preventing larger supermarkets and drugstores from offering shoppers plastic bags.
Mayor Gavin Newsom is expected to sign the bill into law.
If signed, supermarkets will have six months and pharmacies one year to switch over to environmentally friendly compostable bags, made of corn starch or of recycled paper.
Environmental groups say around 180 million plastic bags are distributed in San Francisco each year. The plastic sacks are often blamed for polluting waterways and killing marine life.
