Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Food Waste and Compostable Plastic Bags Go Together

Sounds like LA needs to beef up it's ability to compost food waste collection, in order to handle the type of compostable plastic bags that San Franscisco is now using:

April 10, 2007
Compostable bags no solution for L.A. area
The county and city lack the infrastructure to copy S.F.'s answer to plastic-sack pollution
By Charles Proctor, LA Times, Los Angeles, CA

San Francisco's landmark ban on common plastic shopping bags last month inspired pundits and politicians to predict that other cities would soon follow suit. But what worked there might prove tough to do in the Los Angeles area...

love this idea from Mark Murray:
"We're all for any community that wants to pursue a ban on plastic bags," said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, a nonprofit group based in Sacramento."But if I was going to Los Angeles or any other communities that are thinking they might take this approach, we would propose they look at a straight-out ban on plastic bags" — including compostable plastic bags, he said.

Six Month Pledge Campaign by Art Student

Had to include this one, it's about a plastic bag education campaign by Roman Jaster, a student at my alma mater:

Apr 30, 2007
CalArts Student Says No to Paper and Plastic

Banned in San Francisco and likely on the way out in LA, too, plastic bags have truly become an enemy of the state, at least in California. But paper's no angel, either; the only real solution is to get people to start bringing reusable bags themselves. One CalArts student staged an "ecological intervention" to confront shoppers with the concept...

Here's Roman's website documenting the project