Costs Associated With Paper and Plastic Bags 

ROBERT HALEY Department of the Environment - CCSF 17nov04

 

SF Environment
415-355-3700 
environment@sfgov.org

11 Grove Street
San Francisco  CA   94102

Background: Our calculations, based on a database of supermarkets in San Francisco, and discussions with Safeway, are that 50,000,000 bags are distributed annually through outlets defined as supermarkets in San Francisco, and that 90% are plastic bags, and 10% are paper bags.

 

  1. Norcal Recycling Contamination Costs: Bag contamination of the recycling stream creates two problems at Norcal’s processing facilities. The first is the cost of removing bag contamination from recycling equipment and machinery. Norcal costs for bag contamination includes the cost of 12 classifiers to remove bags from the recycling stream, which amounts to $494,000 a year; $100,000 annually to clear machinery jams caused by bags, and $100,000 annually in reduced revenue on the sale of recyclable materials due to bag contamination. Total annual cost $ 694,000. This does not include the costs incurred by other recyclers.
        This is 1.4 cents a bag.

  2.  

  3. Norcal Composting Contamination Costs: Removing plastic, picking up litter and reduced revenue of the sale of compostable materials due to bag contamination totals $400,000 annually.
        This is .8 cents a bag.

  4.  

  5. Collection and Disposal Costs: Based on the 2% of the waste stream that is paper and plastic bags, the annual cost of collection and disposal for bags alone is $3,600,000. 
        This is 7.2 cents a bag.

  6.  

  7. City Street Cleaning Costs: The annual costs for street cleaning is $26,000,000, which includes both mechanical and manual collection of litter from San Francisco’s streets. 10% of the amount spent on litter collection is spent on bag collection and transportation. This amounts to $2,600,000 annually. 
        This is 5.2 cents a bag.

  8.  

  9. City Future Landfill Liability Costs, Including Post-Closure: With bags making up 2% of the waste stream, the annual cost for future liability costs totals $1,200,000 annually based on an analysis of potential remediation and processing of $85.50 a ton. 
        This is 2.4 cents a bag.

    Total 17.0 cents per bag.

 

The above costs do not include the following:

The decomposed carcass of this Laysan albatross on Kure Atoll, which lies in a remote and virtually uninhabited region of the North Pacific. The bird probably mistook the plastics for food and ingested them while foraging for prey.


Mindfully.org note
:
While this particular albatross was killed by mostly plastic bottle caps, there are hundreds of recorded incidents of other sea animals strangling on plastic bags. They get stuck in the animals' throats, thus blocking food from entering the stomach. The
animals also get entangled in the bags, which can act as a parachute in the water, thus preventing them from escaping prey.

More on Plastics in the Sea and Lakes

 

 

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