Posted by R, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Mar 26, 2009 at 3:24 pm

The estimate of 35,000 single-use bags per year distributed by retailers in unincorporated County areas seems unrealistically low. That would be an average of 686 per retailer per year, with the 51 retailers mentioned in the article. That works out to just 2 bags per store per day. Hmmmm....

Posted by JJ, a resident of the Sylvan Park neighborhood, on Mar 27, 2009 at 3:09 pm

Maybe the first "carrot" we should try is to hand out 5 reusable, recyclable bags to each household. This, no doubt, would encourage shoppers to go this route, instead of using single use plastic or paper bags. That is actually how I got started down the bring-your-own recycleable bags path, myself. When I got one free, it helmed me to understand the affect plastic and paper bags have on our environment I now always have 10 of these bags on hand to use for my shopping experiences. As I always have them in my vehicle, I use them a ALL the stores I shop at, not just grocery stores.

If the cities partnered with the larger stores to make these first bags available for free, the public becomes better educated and motivated to go green and save our environment.