There's an article on TreeHugger that'sreally something to boast about. NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg, islooking to charge consumers 6 cents per plastic bag (5 of which wouldgo to the city, 1 of which would go back to the store). The hope is toreduce the use of plastic shopping bags and promote the use of reusableshopping bags.

Plastic bags are an inefficient use ofnon-renewable materials – they take a long time to break down, arebrutally ugly eyesores, can interfere with water drainage and recyclingsystems and, worst of all, are totally unnecessary. Companies aroundthe world churn out over 4 trillion plastic bags a year. Ugh.

Whilepaper bags are a better option in some respects, they are stillunneeded waste. This is why we love the idea of promoting the use ofreusable shopping bags. They're a much better alternative for theenvironment and some stores even give you discounts for bringing inyour own bag. These bags can be made of a bunch of different materialsall varying in their degree of greenness, but what makes them reallyeffective is when you use them over and over and we're all in supportof that.

Our own hometown, San Francisco, became the first city in the US to ban the use of plastic bagsback in 2007. While we like to think that SF helped pave the way forother cities to realize just how dirty plastic bags can be, we are mostimpressed by the results seen in Ireland,who placed a 15 cent levy on plastic bags in 2002, and saw a 90%reduction in their use (resulting in 1 billion fewer bags used peryear) and raised over 12 million dollars of dedicated environmentalprogram funding in the first year – all things that we’d love to seeresult from the New York City plan. And in case you didn't know it, wehave our own version of a reusable bag that'll help get you into plastic bag rehab too.

Rubbish in blue (bag) image by SouthbankSteve