No more ‘paper or plastic?’

Joshua Sabatini, The Examiner


SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco continued to ride the “green wave” Tuesday by becoming the first city in the nation to ban plastic checkout bags from large grocery and pharmacy chains.

Opposed by grocers, legislation banning the plastic bags was widely supported by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, blaming the petroleum-based bags for littering city streets, harming wildlife, gumming up recycling machines and eating up fossil fuels.

The City’s estimated 54 large grocery chains will have to switch to recyclable paper, compostable plastic bags or durable reusable bags within about six months and large pharmacy chains, such as Walgreens and Rite-Aid, within a year.

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi drafted the legislation after he and other city officials accused the large grocery store chains of failing to live up to an agreement to reduce the use of the bags by 10 million last year. The agreement was struck with the stipulation that The City would not pursue a 17-cent tax per plastic bag.

The California Grocers Association maintain the agreement was successful in cutting the usage of plastic bags by 7.6 million in 2006, but city officials claim that number is unreliable.

The ban would help move The City closer to its goal of diverting 75 percent of all waste produced from its landfills by 2010, said Jared Blumenfeld, head of the Environment Department.

“After 10 years of plastic bag recycling in The City, we have a 1 percent recycling rate. So it’s a 99 percent failure of the bags,” Blumenfeld said.

It is estimated that San Francisco’s 54 large grocery stores account for 100 million to 150 million plastic checkout bags a year, according to city officials, and that 430,000 gallons of oil is used in the production of 100 million plastic bags.

“We still don’t think that it’s the most effective way of dealing with the environmental issue,” California Grocers Association spokesman Dave Heylen said.

Instead, the grocers association advocates continuing efforts to recycle and reuse plastic bags. Heylen also said the plastic bags are “the most economical from a retail standpoint,” costing a “couple of pennies” each while the compostable plastic bags would cost anywhere between 6 and 10 cents each.

Supervisor Ed Jew, the only naysayer in the 10-1 vote, agreed the ban would hamper recycling efforts.

“We still have about 95,000 small businesses in San Francisco that will continue to use plastic bags, as well as the city and county of San Francisco,” Jew said.

The Board of Supervisors is expected to give final approval to the legislation at its next meeting on April 10.

Shoppers critical of prohibition

On a windy day when loose plastic, paper and garments were noticeable, many shoppers said they understood the desired environmental effect in the ban but that the plastic bags provided a convenience otherwise unfulfilled by the cumbersome and geometric paper bags.

“When you’re running around with plastic bags, you can put a ton on your hand. You can’t do that with paper,” said Mark Quessey, a design student popping out of the Walgreens at Broadway and Polk streets.

“It’s politicians trying to make themselves sound important; it’s just a gimmick,” Quessey said.

The ban only affects The City’s largest chain supermarkets — 54 in all — and pharmacy chains such as Walgreens, leaving plastic bags with smaller businesses, such as corner grocers.

Others lamented the loss of plastic bags for around-the-house duties such as garbage or, ahem, dog duty.

Matt Campbell, who drives to the Safeway in the Marina from the Presidio, said he used the bags around his house for just such reasons.

When asked about compostable bags, Campbell along with shoppers, questioned what they were made of and how similar they were to plastic.

H.O. Salimi said that while his wife would miss the plastic bags for household uses, it was a good idea to cut down on the amount of plastic that is out there.

Shopping at the Whole Foods at Franklin and California streets three times a week, he said he noticed the omnipresence of plastic bags when they would be tucked into each other for support.

Devian McEvoy, walking up the hill from the Marina Safeway with two plastic bags in hand, called the ban “pointless” because paper pollutes, too, and the board was “just asking for perfection.”— David Smith

Cingular Wireless to refund $18.5 million to unhappy customers

MICHAEL LIEDTKE, The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO - Cingular Wireless will refund $18.5 million to thousands of former California customers who were penalized for canceling their mobile phone service because they had trouble making and receiving calls.

The settlement announced Thursday with the California Public Utilities Commission ends a lengthy battle revolving around Cingular's treatment of dissatisfied subscribers from January 2000 through April 2002.

About 115,000 unhappy customers who left Cingular during that time will receive average refund checks of $160 to cover the fees that they were charged for prematurely ending their contracts. The refunds include interest.

Cingular expects to issue the refunds within 60 days, spokeswoman Lauren Garner said. An unknown number of other former customers who paid early termination fees to outside vendors who sold Cingular service will have to file claims that are reviewed by an independent claims administrator.

Besides spelling out the size of the refunds, the truce upholds a $12.1 million fine that state regulators imposed on Cingular in September 2003. At that time, the regulators had ordered Cingular to issue refunds without specifying an amount.

Regulators lashed out at Cingular after concluding the carrier didn't give its subscribers an adequate chance to change their minds about a service that was frequently swamped with more calling traffic than it could handle. The traffic on Cingular's mobile network nearly doubled to 3 million subscribers during that period, straining the system until the company completed extensive upgrades.

Cingular, recently renamed AT&T Mobility, had been unsuccessfully fighting in court to overturn California's regulatory ruling. The company had filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court shortly before deciding to settle.

"While we have a strong case for appeal, it is time to move forward," Cingular said in a statement. "Cingular's business practices have changed significantly since the period in question, and the company is now the industry leader in customer-friendly initiatives."

Among other things, Cingular said it now offers all customers up to 30 days to return their phones and drop their service without penalty.

That option wasn't available in California during 2000, 2001 and the first part of 2002, according to state regulators.

Back then, Cingular insisted on penalizing exasperated customers even though its management knew congestion problems were causing many calls to be blocked or dropped, according to company testimony cited in the case.

Area residents prefer regional over local Wi-Fi

David Smith, The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO - By nearly 2-to-1, Bay Area residents favor a regional wireless network rather than a collection of individual city and county Wi-Fi networks spread across the area, a new survey said.

The survey, commissioned by theBay Area Council, showed that 52 percent of the 600 residents questioned preferred a single network that residents around the Bay could tap into.

Twenty-eight percent said they’d like to see individual cities and counties provide blanket Wi-Fi access for their jurisdictions, such as those officials in The City are considering.

Los Angeles is working on plans for wireless Internet and has an advantage over the Bay Area, which has nine counties and 101 cities, said John Grubb, spokesman for the Bay Area Council, a business-oriented public policy advocacy group. In Silicon Valley, meanwhile, Peninsula cities are developing their own area-wide Wi-Fi network, now being tested in San Carlos.

“If there’s one thing and only one thing that we envy about Los Angeles it’s that they have a huge physical footprint served by one government body,” Grubb said.

Grubb said the council was working with the “biggest companies” in the area — he couldn’t name names — on rolling out “something big” on a regional wireless effort.

“These polling results certainly point to the need for one network for the whole region,” he said.

The survey found the number of residents using computers has stayed flat since 1999, when 79 percent said they used a PC at home, work or school. In 2007, that number is 81 percent.

The survey, conducted by Field Research Corporation during the second week of January this year, also detected a “digital divide” in the Bay Area — a link between Internet and computer use and income levels.

Of individuals making more than $80,000, 97 percent regularly use a computer whether at work or home, but just 62 percent of those earning less than $40,000 do the same. Similarly, 95 percent of those in the top income group access the Internet, compared with 52 percent in the lower income bracket.

Ray Hartz Jr., a 57-year-old resident of The City and manager at Barnes & Noble who took part in the survey, said having a regionwide Wi-Fi network would be beneficial, allowing every resident to access the Internet if they had a computer.

Computers need to be recycled like hearing aids or eyeglasses to provide people with the best chance of accessing the educational, social or professional opportunities the Internet provides, Hartz Jr. said.

“Having it available for everybody would be a great equalizer,” Hartz Jr. said.