After a false start three years ago, Delhi, India's capitol city, will soon have one of the most extensive bans on plastic products out there. Plastic bags lie strewn in city alleys, clogging drainage pipes, harming cows that eat them along with the garbage that they nibble on and offer a prime breeding ground for harmful bacteria and disease. The updated ban now prohibits manufacturing of plastic bags and use of plastic sheets, films or covers for packaging books, magazines or cards.
San Francisco Update:
The City of San Francisco won an important case in Superior Court on September 12th when Judge Teri L. Jackson upheld passage of a local ordinance extending San Francisco's ban on plastic checkout bags to all retail stores and restaurants, and imposing a 10-cent charge on other bags provided to consumers. The "Save the Plastic Bag Coalition", an association of plastic bag manufacturers and distributors brought suit to invalidate the law, arguing that the City had not properly complied with provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act and that the California Retail Food Code preempts the law because prohibitions on plastic bags for retail food facilities amount to a "health and sanitation standard." The court disagreed. The new "bigger, better" San Francisco ordinance applies to all stores and restaurants instead of just supermarkets and large pharmacies. It also adds a fee on paper bags which was not implemented in the first San Francisco bag ordinance.
