Plant Pride...Not Litter
Plastic bags are caught by the winds and cause a significant litter problem throughout the City. Plastic bags:

• Catch on roadside shrubbery and electrical wires
• Pile up against fences and curbs
• Make perfectly trimmed landscapes look trashy

Plastic-film shopping bags also have a way of escaping from trash containers, car trunks and landfills. Their feather weight and basket shape design allow them to go airborne in the slightest wind. A plastic bag, because of its physical dynamics, is increasing in numbers in the litter stream.

Plastic bags not only create litter and waste, but use up natural resources and energy when produced. Shoppers worldwide are using 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags per year. That is 150 bags a year for every person on earth or a million every minute and rising. On average, Californians use about 552 disposable plastic bags per person per year. That’s 19 billion bags, enough to circle the globe over 250 times. Public agencies and ultimately tax payers, are stuck paying hundreds of millions of dollars annually in plastic bag litter and waste prevention and clean-up costs.

Read the entire Plastic Bag Reduction Program article.