Add another city to the list of those that have understood the severe negative effects of single-use plastic bags. Last Wednesday, Mexico City banned businesses from distributing plastic bags that are not biodegradable. The ban affects all stores, production facilities and service providers within the Federal District, which encompasses the city limits. Nearly 9 million people live inside the district, which makes it second large metropolitan area in the Western Hemisphere to outlaw single-use plastic bags.
The ban is good news for officials that are calling for a global ban on plastic bags, as well as other cities around the world that are attempting to implement similar policies.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, says plastic bags are the second-most-common form of litter, behind cigarette butts. The bags are the greatest form of litter on the globe’s oceans, the U.N. agency said in a recent report.
The bags are also a major threat to ocean wildlife, causing the deaths of 100,000 sea turtles and other marine animals that mistake them for food.
“Thin-film, single-use plastic bags, which choke marine life, should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere,” Steiner said in June. “There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere.”
Read more at CNN.
[Photo: DoctorWho, Flickr]
now if we could only do something about smokers/cigarette butts? can we make it law that it’s ok to punch them if we see them throw a butt on the ground? t-bone them if out their car window?
I don’t understand ReusableBags.com comment that bag fees are better than bag bans. By having the bags available, whether paid for or not, keeps the problem in existence. Ban the bag, the problem goes away.