Plastics are on the run in San Francisco, the nation’s anti-petroleum capital |
by Jan Lundberg | |
29 March 2007 | |
Culture Change Letter # 156 --
Come this fall, almost no one in San Francisco will be collecting plastic bags -- that are almost never recycled. These bags clog the City’s waste system and contaminate its compost program. The ban on petroleum-plastic shopping bags is in addition to the City’s recent styrofoam container ban and an imminent ban on phthalates (and eventually bisphenol-A) for children’s products. Let’s hear it for the City by the Bay and a small core of public servants and citizen activists.
The more you learn about plastics, the more scary and disgusting they clearly become. I am passionately opposed to seeing more people plasticized and killed or deformed. Their children may take the brunt of this needless and ubiquitous exposure to powerful, little-understood poisons, so it’s not as if plastics are a fine and dandy choice according to one’s whims and consumer code.
We are all up against industry propaganda to continue to use plastics and to believe they are so useful to be essential, while supposedly harmless. Political muscle is sometimes applied, such as when Arnold Schwartzenegger signed a law last year banning cities in California from putting a fee on plastic-bag distribution and from obtaining statistics from grocery retailers on bags distributed.
This maneuver, however, served to galvanize the outraged City of San Francisco Supervisors and Environment Dept. workers -- because they had almost passed a bag-fee ordinance in 2005, but the mayor instead went for a compromise with industry. That failed, as bag recycling continued to be miniscule, and the devious, bad faith of industry lobbyists in Sacramento was obvious. So now we have "pay-back time." The vote to inaugurate the new compostable-bag-substitution law to end the reign of petroleum plastic shopping bags was 10-1, and the mayor is behind it too.
![]() Supervisor Mirkarimi with canvass bags, City Hall (JL rear, far right) "If, by January 1, 2008, the State of California has not banned or significantly restricted the use of Bisphenol-A in toys, child care products, and child feeding products, the Department of Public Health, in consultation with the Department of the Environment, shall make recommendations to the Board of Supervisors on regulating the manufacture, sale, or distribution in commerce within the City of such products." The state legislation is being pushed by Assemblywoman Fiona Ma in Sacramento.In conclusion: It can’t be stressed too often that our appetite for petroleum is going to run into sudden, near termination due to peaking petroleum extraction globally. This is in large part because the physical supply and capability to distribute petroleum are going to be blocked and perhaps entirely halted by the (dys)function of the petroleum market characterized by super high prices, hoarding, crippling outages, and failure of the petroleum-based infrastructure. Alternative fuels will not come through as dreamed. When Western Civilization is faced with the end of growth, there will be no preparation or significant mitigation. Picture post-Katrina New Orleans writ very large and without any rescue -- not even incompetent, corrupt rescue. Evidence for petrocollapse continues to be amassed. The Congressional Peak Oil Caucus is trying to get the word out, and this week it is highlighting another study. Congressman Roscoe Bartlett ‘s (R-MD) press manager Lisa Wright reports in EnergyBulletin.net: A new "GAO report on peak oil will reveal that the U.S. is particularly vulnerable and the U.S. federal government is unprepared to respond to severe consequences from an increasing risk of significant disruptions to world oil supplies from peak oil and other factors." Plastics are only one part of the refined petroleum barrel (or natural gas cubic measurement), but it is high time we put them way up on our list of other petroleum products, such as gasoline, that are part of the hopelessly unsustainable and deadly "non-negotiable American life-style." Styrofoam container ban Last November the San Francisco Board of Supervisors banned plastic to-go boxes. Outlawed is the use of plastic foam to-go containers by city restaurants. The ordinance, introduced by Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, would apply to about 3,400 restaurants in San Francisco as well city facility food-service providers and vendors contracting with the city. (See link below for details.) Details on phthalate-bisphenol-A ban: San Francisco's Supervisor Alioto-Pier's legislation will probably result in banning some really gnarly poisons in plastics that affect babies and children especially. Here are some of the official findings on phthalates, from the draft law supplied to Culture Change: (a) Phthalates are a family of chemicals that are used as an additive in a number of consumer products and are used to make plastics flexible for use in children’s toys, shower curtains, medical supplies, and building materials. (b) Phthalate additives are not bound tightly within the plastic and may leach out of the product. Leaching may occur especially as a result of mechanical stress such as chewing or bending, and upon exposure to fats, saliva and warm temperatures (c) Phthalates have been shown to cause reproductive harm including genital defects, sperm damage, reduced testosterone production, and premature deliveries. (d) Government agencies and scientific bodies in the European Union (EU) have recognized the potential harm of six specific types of phthalates: DEHP, DBP, BBP, DINP, DIDP, and DNOP especially to infants and young children; and as a result, these chemicals are banned from use in children’s products in the EU. (e) The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission has established a voluntary program to eliminate one type of phthalate, DEHP, from children’s toys. (f) Studies and testing indicate that regardless of this voluntary phase-out, toys sold in the United States still contain DEHP, especially toys made from PVC plastic. (g) Consumers are not able to make informed purchasing decisions regarding children’s products because there is no requirement to list phthalates content on product labels. Bisphenol-A (h) Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a building block of polycarbonate plastic used in such products as clear plastic baby bottles and water bottles, and in other materials such as the epoxy resin coatings that line food containers. (i) BPA has been shown to leach out of the polycarbonate plastic upon exposure to heat and mechanical scrubbing and has been detected in the liquid contained in plastic bottles that have been exposed to heat. (j) BPA mimics the hormone estrogen and is therefore considered to be an endocrine disruptor. The hormone systems of young children are uniquely susceptible to low doses of estrogenic substances. Scientific studies have shown that BPA at very low doses can affect brain chemistry and structure, behavior, the immune system, enzyme activity, the male reproductive system, and the female reproductive system in a variety of animals, including snails, fish, frogs, and mammals. (k) Scientific bodies within the US government and the European Union have concluded that animal studies such as those carried out on BPA are a vital guide to identifying health risks for humans, but have thus far concluded that no restrictions on BPA in consumer products are warranted at this time. (l) There is some uncertainty in the available scientific evidence, and The Department of Public Health and Department of the Environment should will continue to monitor emerging literature on the potential health effects of exposure to BPA. (m) Consumers are not able to make informed purchasing decisions regarding children’s products because there is no requirement to list BPA content on product labelsFurther, the proposed law states: "Manufacturers should not replace phthalates pursuant to this (ordinance) with carcinogens… toxicants that cause birth defects, reproductive harm, or developmental harm... Toys and child care products (are those) likely to be placed in a child's mouth, such as teething rings, rubber ducks, plastic books, and child feeding products, such as bottles, plates, or pacifiers." * * * * * Background online: San Francisco Chronicle coverage of the plastic bag ban: Read up on the new law: "The Board of Supervisors in San Francisco -- at the behest of Supe Ross Mirkarimi -- voted 10-1 today (Ed Jew dissented) to ban petroleum-based checkout bags at large markets and pharmacies. The supervisors will need to take a second vote on the ordinance to officially pass it (each new law gets two readings); it will go into effect six months later."The actual text of the law is at http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/bdsupvrs/bosagendas/materials/070085.pdf More background, including the prestigious newspaper's link to Culture Change: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nwzchik/detail?blogid=32&entry_id=14804 - Editorial: Neither paper nor plastic - Two Cents: How many do you have? - Ban to apply to drug stores - Grocery bag fee lacks support - Editorial: Bagging the bags Elsewhere on the Web: - NPR: S.F. nears ban - The Green Guide - Culture Change "San Francisco First City to Ban Plastic Shopping Bags" by Charlie Goodyear, San Francisco Chronicle truthout.org/issues_06/032807EC.shtml Toxic Chemical Leaches from Popular Baby Bottles uspirg.org Supervisors ban plastic to-go boxes... San Francisco Chronicle, sfgate.com * * * * * Additional resources: City of San Francisco, Dept. of the Environment: sfgov.org/site/mainpages_index.asp?id=13868 DVD "Our Synthetic Sea" from Algalita Marine Research Foundation can be obtained via their website: algalita.org Campaign Against the Plastic Plague/Earth Resource Foundation: earthresource.org War on Plastic (Culture Change Letter #82): culturechange.org/e-letter-plastics.html Plastics in car worse than even in your kitchen? - Culture Change Letter # 121 culturechange.org/cms Bisphenol-A, the endocrine disrupter in plastics you ingest, is exposed in yet another new scientific report getting into the mainstream press: "Study: Canned food has toxic chemical Pregnant women, infants at risk" - nj.com/news/ledger Remember to support Culture Change. Please improve our capacity to reach more people with our publications and projects. 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