Got to bag it up

In between "F--- you, Jake"s, the Board of Supervisors will soon hear arguments for and against a city tax of 17 cents on grocery bags.

I've been re-using bags for some time. I haven't gone canvas yet, but I feel wasteful chucking -- or even recycling -- plastic or paper bags right after I use them for the first and only time. It'd be great to encourage people to do likewise.

Still, I wonder: Why does this only apply to grocery bags? I've stopped accepting bags at Amoeba Records, and I occasionally bring one into the store. And I'd like to know if they've considered a cash-return policy, similar to the aluminum-can deposit plan, on bags found in the trash. I realize Sunset Scavenger/Norcal doesn't recycle plastic bags, but it's still a back-end motivation to keep more plastic out of the landfill. And it'd amount to something useful that homeless people could do for a little bit of money, for one thing.

Some stores give you a credit if you bring your own bag. That does seem like a saner way to accomplish the same thing.

Last month's Harper's Index says that four-fifths of British trash ends up in landfills, but only two-fifths of German trash does. And this article says Australia, Bangladesh, Italy, South Africa, Taiwan and Ireland tax new grocery bags.

Speaking of recycling, dig (through) this. More here.

Meanwhile, you can't smoke in Golden Gate Park or any other city park anymore. Golf courses are exempt, a provision Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi suggests has "an undertone of elitism." More than an undertone, I'd say, although people behave very differently on City-owned golf courses than they do at, say, Big Rec.

Now if only they could do something about the dogs that leave presents for outfielders chasing fly balls. And the people who own those dogs, too.


Song now playing: Coleman Hawkins' "I Surrender, Dear"