Waste is a terrible thing to mind

Reusable, washable plates, cups, silverware for all City funded events (including meals offered to City Councilors and Staff)

Requiring all festivals to aim for zero waste: Saturday Market, Eugene Celebration, Willamette Valley Folk Festival and other events would need to use washable plates, cups, etc. A mobile dishwasher system could be shared in the community to facilitate this waste reduction / prevention effort (this is common in some European countries).

municipal waste as agriculture - as toxics are phased out (no more agent orange in the hardware stores) - or composting toilets - clean out river (one reason why river damned - for summer flows)
city council - meetings - all reusable cups / plates, no throwaway materials (garbage free meetings)
tax cups
styrofoam bans
Garbage - plastic bags - cost / benefits
increase bottle bill deposit (statewide)
other incentives
ban comingling
carbohydrate economy - plastics that degrade and are not toxic
food composting
recycling laws as good as Germany
street fairs - washable dishes
tax on “throw away” cups - spent toward renewable economy
could eliminate need to expand landfill -
mining landfills in the future

www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5879396,00.html

Japan Tries to Cut Down on Plastic Bags
Sunday June 11, 2006 7:16 PM
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - Buy lunch and a magazine at any Japanese convenience store, and you're likely to get your drink in one plastic bag, hot lunch box in another, and your magazine in yet a third.
The mega-packaging keeps your food hot, your drink cool and your newspaper clean, but environmentalists say it also creates a mountain of plastic waste that fouls the air, pollutes the oceans and contributes to global warming.
The world uses between 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags a year, according to the advocacy Web site, reusablebags.com. Wrapping-happy Japan is a major player, consuming some 30 billion - about 300 for each adult.
Those figures don't include the tons of extra wrapping - individual plastic covers for shirts from the cleaners, tiny packages for single cookies - used in Japan, experts say, suggesting the country is among the world's premier consumers of plastic sheet.
``Japan probably uses more plastic than most societies in the world,'' said Hideki Nakahashi, a spokesman at the Japan Polyolefin Film Industry Trade Association.
Facing criticism from environmentalists, Japan is now trying to reduce plastic use with a law revision that lets the government issue warnings to retailers that don't do enough to reduce, reuse and recycle.
The revised law was approved by Parliament Friday. But for a country famous for elaborate wrapping, cutting back will be an uphill task.
``We consider wrapping a part of the product,'' said Shinji Shimamura, a spokesman for the Japan Franchise Association, which represents over 125 franchise chains in Japan.
``Of course it's good to cut down on plastic bag use,'' Shimamura said. ``But we can't hand customers a hot lunch box or cold ice cream without a bag. That would be unhygienic and very rude.''
Still, wrapping habits in Japan border on the excessive. Some fruit stores even wrap each apple or banana in plastic. And when purchased, they all go in yet another plastic shopping bag.
The impulse to wrap may stem from Japan's traditional attitudes toward gift giving, which is geared to presentation more than content. The layering of wrapping also has important social meaning - more wrapping means more politeness and formality.
And the bags are so cheap, particularly imports, that shops don't have the incentive to reduce or recycle, analysts say.
Some retailers have taken the initiative to cut back even before the revised law comes into effect in 2007.
Lawson, Inc., a convenience store chain with almost 8,400 stores in Japan and sales of over $1.15 billion in 2005, launched a monthlong campaign in June urging customers to make do with fewer bags.
``We're asking people who buy only one bottled soft drink or one packet of gum whether they don't mind going without a plastic bag,'' said Lawson spokesman Shin Nakamura.
But a lot of people want the bag, he says.
``If it's a can of hot drink, for example, customers don't want to carry it in their hand,'' he said
That convenience is bad news for the environment, said Yoshitaka Fukuoka, a professor of environmental science at Tokyo's Rissho University.
Plastic bags waste valuable oil resources and the energy it takes to produce them contributes to global warming. Some can release harmful toxins when burned, and many end up in the sea and can kill sea turtles and other marine animals that mistake them for food.
Moreover, Fukuoka says the revised law - with only a system of warnings, with no legal liabilities - doesn't go far enough.
``Stores must be forced to charge for bags. That's the only way Japanese consumers can be persuaded to cut down on the plastic bags they use,'' Fukuoka said.
Germany, for example, saw plastic bag use fall by 70 percent after the government introduced a small levy in 2002. Similar strategies have been successfully employed in Ireland, South Africa, Bangladesh, Australia, Shanghai and Taiwan.
The Environment Ministry, however, argues the revision is a step in the right direction.
``The law is about raising awareness and a sense of responsibility,'' said Yoichi Horigome, an official at the ministry's recycling policy bureau. ``We expect retailers to be very cooperative.''
The ministry is also suggesting more traditional and ecological alternatives to plastic. It recently launched a campaign to revive the ``furoshiki,'' Japan's traditional answer to the reusable bag, a piece of fabric for carrying things by simply wrapping them.
``Japanese weren't always so wasteful,'' Horigome said. ``We once led more environmentally friendly lifestyles. I think we can draw on that.''

Feb. 11, 2006, 7:30PM
Oakland to levy fast-food 'litter tax'
Revenue will be spent on cleaning up street trash
Associated Press
OAKLAND, CALIF. - Fed up with burger wrappers, french fry containers and paper cups, Oakland officials have decided to force fast-food restaurants, convenience stores and other businesses to help pay for cleaning up street trash.Under a tax approved last week by the City Council, businesses will be assessed between $230 and $3,815 annually, depending on their sizes.
More than three-quarters of the affected businesses would pay only the minimum fee, which amounts to 63 cents a day.
"I don't think that's too much to ask so neighbors don't have to keep picking up trash from their doorways," said Councilwoman Jane Brunner, who proposed the measure.
The city would use the projected $237,000 a year to hire small crews to pick up litter in commercial areas around high schools and middle schools where most of the garbage is found.
The fee was opposed by the Metropolitan Oakland Chamber of Commerce and business organizations that say the costs will be passed along to customers, including low-income residents and young people who are the biggest consumers of fast food.
The California Restaurant Association said it is considering a lawsuit to keep the tax from taking effect.
In 2000, the Illinois Restaurant Association and two restaurant owners successfully sued the city of Chicago after a half-percent "litter tax" was imposed on carry-out restaurants.
The restaurants had claimed the measure was unconstitutional.
Businesses in Oakland say the city should educate the public and enforce littering laws. Some say they already pay employees to pick up trash in their neighborhoods.

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/01/25/BUGCJAVPAI1.DTL
Adding up the cost of bags
Kathleen Pender
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
... six nations -- Australia, Bangladesh, Italy, South Africa, Taiwan and Ireland -- levy taxes or have enacted bans on plastic shopping bags. It says that in Ireland, plastic bag usage dropped 90 percent in the first year after that nation imposed a fee of 15 cents per bag. Newsom, among others, has expressed concerns that the bag fee could be regressive, hitting lower-income consumers hardest.
But Ashenmiller says, "It's not particularly regressive. I suspect that people who are very low income will bring in their own bags" and that higher- income consumers will simply pay for a bag each time they shop.
That is what worries some people the most.
"Most people will just pay the fee. The same amount is still being stuck in their recycling bins," says Walls.
"This is somebody saying, 'We need X dollars to cover our costs,' but they're not taking the item out of the waste stream," she adds.
For the program to work, she says, there should be a deposit and a refund, like there is for beverage containers.
Christine Rosen, who teaches business history and environmental history at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, agrees.
"I think you need a reward as well as a penalty," she says. For example, stores could charge shoppers 17 cents to buy a bag or give them a 10-cent credit if they use their own.

In San Francisco, 17-Cent Fee on Grocery Bags OK'd
By Wyatt Buchanan
The San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday 26 January 2005
The San Francisco Commission on the Environment unanimously approved a proposal Tuesday evening asking the city to charge grocery shoppers 17 cents for every paper or plastic bag they take home.
If approved by the Board of Supervisors and mayor, which could take six months, the fee would be the first of its kind in the country, though several nations charge for shopping bags, and New York City entertained the idea last year.
The commission wants the fee initially to apply only to customers at larger grocery stores. But it wants an option to later extend it to smaller markets, drugstores, department stores, hardware stores, dry cleaners, food takeout, newspapers and other bag distributors.
The supervisors could also determine how large the fee would be and how it would be applied. Supervisors are not bound by any part of the commission's proposal.
As a result of the commission's action, a private agency will be hired to analyze the impact of shopping bags on the city's budget and its environment and examine the impact of a bag fee on low-income people and large families.
The analysis is expected April 30, commissioners said. Depending on the results, the proposal of 17 cents could change, said Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city's Department of the Environment.
Many of the commissioners who spoke said their intention was not merely to increase revenue.
"We're not trying to just charge a user fee; we're trying to make a change in behavior," said Paul Pelosi Jr., commission vice president.
Blumenfeld said the fee was determined by dividing the total cost in cleanup, disposal and lost recycling revenue because of plastic shopping bags - about $8.7 million - by the number of bags dispersed in the city by large grocery stores each year, which is about 50 million.
Proponents of the bag tax also cite environmental concerns such as the number of felled trees for paper bags and barrels of oil for plastic bags as the basis of the proposal. They say plastic bags harm marine mammals, litter the city and are major contaminants in the city's recycling and composting program.
Opponents of the tax, including the American Plastics Council and the California Grocers Association, have stopped the state Legislature from imposing a similar fee. They argue that plastic bags, which make up 90 percent of all grocery bags, are used to make other goods like composite lumber and that the city instead should develop a recovery program for bags.
Tuesday's meeting allowed the public to comment, and all but three of the few dozen who spoke supported the idea.
"This resolution is an attempt to get people to take responsibility for their actions," said Joe Besso, recycling program manager for Norcal Waste Systems, which runs garbage and recycling services in the city.
Plastic bags are not recyclable in the city, and when they show up with other items they can prevent a whole batch of material from being recycled, he said.
Blumenfeld said such contamination cost the city $694,000 a year.
Those who opposed the bag fee cited the burden on poor people. The proposal includes a provision to subsidize the cost of bags for the poor, and some who spoke recommended a program to give away free canvas bags.