Oakland to follow San Francisco’s plastic bag ban

A measure has been passed by the key City Council Committee in Oakland to ban plastic bags from grocery stores and other large retailers similar to the ban adopted in San Francisco earlier this year. If the measure is approved, it could take effect in August preventing any retailer grossing more than $1 million a year from using the nonbiodegradable plastic bags. The measure is sponsored by Councilwomen Nancy Nadel and Jean Quan. 10% of petroleum is used to create the plastic bags and Californians use 19 billion plastic disposable bags each year. This ban will encourage more shoppers to use cloth or other reuseable bags for groceries and shopping. There have been different efforts in reducing plastic bag usage around the world such as Ikea charging 5 cents per bag. In New Zealand, Supermarket chains Foodstuffs and Progressive Enterprises have also recently announced a joint campaign to cut down on the number of plastic bags handed out. The republic of Ireland currently has a 15 cent tax on plastic shopping bags which started in 2002 and has caused a 90% reduction on plastic bag usage.

Plastic shopping bags were first introduced in 1977. Only 0.6 percent of the plastic bags are recycled as 100 billion plastic bags are thrown away in America. It takes 1,000 years for plastic bags to degrade. Plastic bags contain chemical additives that can be harmful to human health and the environment and are toxic to animals. An estimated 100,000 birds, and mammals die from eating plastic bags every year.

SFGate article

4 comments June 27th, 2007 Alex

Berkeley’s new BioFuel Research Center

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will be building a $125 million biofuels research center. It will be one of three centers funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The other two are based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Five months ago, BP awarded U.C.Berkeley with a $500 million grant for a separate research on biofuels. The center will be called the Joint BioEnergy Institute and will be staffed by 130 scientists, researchers and support personnel. The new center will have four divisions, one is for researching new plants to create a source for renewable carbon, second is to research enzymes for transforming plant cellulose into sugars, the third will be for developing biofuels such as ethanol made from cellulose, and the fourth will be supporting the three research lines and the general biofuel industry. This new center will keep the bay area ahead in the forefront of biofuel research and will surely spawn new labs and companies in the area.

via SFGate

1 comment June 27th, 2007 Alex

Ecotuesday June 27th, 2007

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This month, EcoTuesday took place at 12 Galaxies at 2565 Mission St, SF. EcoTuesday is a sustainable business leaders networking forum hosted by Oren Jaffe and Nikki Martinez. It is a great networking event that attracts a diverse group of people fro a varietyof interests and features a different speaker every month from the sustainable business world. This month, the guest speaker was Sue Sakaki, who has worked in the environmental field for 30 years. She has previously worked for the EPA for over 10 years and is the co-founder of a non-profit organization called the Sustainable Earth Initiative. Her recent work has included Environmental Management System (EMS) development, pollution prevention strategies, and sustainable business operations.

Add comment June 27th, 2007 Alex

No more bottled water for City Departments in SF

Last Thursday, Mayor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order prohibiting city departments from buying bottled water. The ban will be in effort July 1st, and applies to all city and county water coolers by December 1st. The decision will save tax payer money as well as fight global warming as more than 40 million gallons of oil are needed to make plastic water bottles that Americans consume each year.  The city spends $500,000 a year on bottled water. After the ban goes into effect, city and county officials will have municipal tap water dispensed that come from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Taste tests have shown that the city’s tap water tastes just as good, if not better, than bottled water.

via SFGate

2 comments June 26th, 2007 Alex

EcoVillage Update

I want to update an earlier post as well as make some adjustments to the earlier post. In San Mateo, there is an Ecovillage community and here is the official website. It is a small urban community formed in two 4-unit apartment buildings with a shared organic garden and fruit trees looking for other families and individuals to share ownership who also value similar ideas and sustainability. They have shared vegetarian meals once a week (not everyone in the community is a vegetarian and they also serve fish). There are even chickens in the community, which along with providing eggs, are mainly used as an integral part of the soil building composting process. The project was created by Sanda and Brian, who have also been involved in other projects as well. They also work with and are involved with different organizations in the bay area and have been nominated for a sustainability award by the Green Party of San Mateo. Check out their website at greensolutions.org for an extensive look into the projects and for pictures. Two of the community members, Ryanne and Jay have interviewed Sanda and Brian about the ecovillage and you can check out their website as well as lots of other videos on different green subjects here.

Add comment June 25th, 2007 Alex