Effective October 1, 2012, San Francisco expanded its plastic bag ordinance beyond food and drug chain stores to include all retail and food businesses. San Francisco has a goal of Zero Waste by 2020, and this new law means that stores must charge their customers $.10 for each carry out bag. The long-term expected result is that consumers will get in the habit of reusing bags and the amount of plastic and paper bags flowing into our landfills will reduce. FLAX is 100% behind the City and shares in the commitment. 

We diligently explored our options to ensure that our bag choice was indeed going to be the most environmental. After contacting many retail bag manufacturers, we chose a “reusable” plastic bag in compliance with the San Francisco Environment Code. Here is what we discovered.

There are less than a handful of domestic paper bag manufacturers, and they all offer the same limited assortment of sizes. None of those sizes are an ideal fit for our products, which means we had to consider custom size bags that are produced only overseas. Cutting down trees from another country to make bags that then must ship across the ocean only compounds the fact that paper bag production has a very large carbon foot print. This 2007 study found that paper manufacturing consumes 300% more energy, 5 times as much solid waste, and produces twice as many green house gas emissions as plastic bag production. This study was conducted by the plastic industry, yet we found the conclusions recited elsewhere and could not locate any data to challenge the study’s veracity. Paper bags also take up a much greater volume, dramatically increasing transportation costs and fuel use. All that left us looking at plastic bags.

There are three types of plastic available for bags: compostable, biodegradable and recyclable. Compostable bags start to break down inside the box after 12-15 months. The purchase minimums are high – a more than two year supply for us – so we’d end up throwing away much of what we ordered. Also, compostable bags are discouraged by SF Environment because consumers confuse them with regular bags and put them in the garbage instead of the green can. Biodegradable plastics contain one of two additives, BPI or EFM, but there is no conclusive data that they actually biodegrade and the ordinance does not address this as an option. Standard recyclable plastic bags, made from a heavier 2.25ml thickness for reusability, is the only viable option.

Our reusable bags are made in California from 100% recycled plastic trash, from a zero waste factory that recycles everything it can: inks, water, and materials. They are printed with safe, non-toxic, and water-based ink. They are made from recyclable #2 HDPE and comply with the San Francisco Environment Code.

Please REUSE our bags. When their useful life is over, please RECYCLE them by dropping them off at FLAX or your neighborhood grocery store.

The City will allow retailers to continue to use bags purchased previously or for specialty uses. Our smaller bags (example shown above left), are made from #4 LDPE, and should be recycled with standard grocery bags or by dropping off at FLAX.

Photo credits for the two images in this article go to: Ramin Rahimian/The Wall Street Journal