BYOB (Bag) to Palo Alto Businesses

Those cloth bags that you haul to the grocery store are about to become a constant fixture in your life. Palo Alto has trashed plastic bags for all businesses, including restaurants and retail stores.

If you ask for a paper bag from a store, you’ll have to pay for it. The cost: 10-cents. Restaurants were exempted from the fee.

The ban was approved Monday night by the city council

Opposing the ban was the California Restaurant Association. The San Jose Mercury-News quoted its director of local government affairs for the association, Javier Gonzalez, "Cross-contamination, food-borne illness is a major concern, liability our members do not want to take up.”

But most speakers supported the ban.

"Obviously, it's not perfect," said environmentalist and former mayor Peter Drekmeier. "But when you think about it, human beings survived for 200,000 years without plastic bags. They're convenient, but I would say the problems they cause outweigh the benefits."

Several people talked about the reuse of bags for trash, while noting that they will buy plastic bags to line trash cans.

The ordinance will take effect on July 1 for most businesses, while restaurants have to give up plastic on Nov. 1.

After that, BYOB.

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