Strong coastal waves could threaten San Franciscans, but what about tidal waves of plastic bags? Save the Bay, a San Francisco non-profit group looks to reduce plastic bag pollution in the Bay Area, launching the “The Bay vs. the Bag” campaign with a video.

The Youtube video uses stop motion to show a woman discarding a plastic bag, only to be enveloped in waves of plastic bags. It was produced by Free Range Studios, creators of the popular "The Meatrix" viral video.

The campaign is working with San Jose and other Bay Area cities to produce and push forward legislation, such as the California state bill (AB 68 and AB 2449), to require a 25-cent fee on retail-distributed paper and plastic bags. Save the Bay has worked to restore aquatic habitats across the Bay Area, areas that are threatened by an estimated one million bags that pollute and smother wetlands; discarded bags also put local animals at risk of entanglement and death.

Implementing fees on ‘single-use’ bags, which encourages consumers to switch to reusable bags, has proven successful in Ireland. Ireland’s Department of the Environment reported charging a 33-cent plastic bag fee over even one year showed significant results: a 93-percent reduction in plastic bag litter and 90-percent reduced plastic bag use.

Though many plastic bags are re-used once to line wastebaskets, when put into the recycle bin they can jam sorting equipment at recycling facilities. The California Integrated Waste Management Board estimates that less than 5 percent of the nearly four billion plastic bags per year that Bay Area residents use are actually recycled.

In one day in 2007, over 25,000 bags were removed from San Francisco Bay. These plastic pests clog storm drains, recycling equipment and cost California taxpayers alone nearly $25 million per year to collect and landfill. San Jose City staff estimated that it cost at least $3 million annually to remove plastic bags from creeks and drains.

Currently, decking manufacturing company Trex purchases nearly three-quarters of the plastic bags recovered nationwide and recycles them into composite outdoor decking, but the handling fees and low-grade result of recycling plastic bags has provided economic challenges. Recyclers have sometimes resorted to stockpiling, or even paying to remove, bales of plastic bags.

In that same vein, isn’t charging for a single-use bag poor policy during these times of economic difficulty? According to Save the Bay, retailers currently embed 2 to 5 cents per plastic bag and 5 to 23 cents per paper bag in prices, resulting in extra hidden costs.

Projects such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Gyre are bringing attention to the environmental damage caused by careless discarding of plastic bags. The garbage patch is a floating behemoth of collected plastic and garbage, the vast majority due to land-based sources. Floating between Hawaii and California, the slowly rotating accumulation of trash-packed water has been measured to be about twice the size of Texas.

San Francisco is one of the pioneers in the plastic bag battle, mandating that large grocery stores and pharmacies distribute only recycled paper bags, compostable plastic bags and reusable bags. Several groups, such as The Coalition to Support Plastic Bag Recycling (formed of plastic bag manufacturers and a recycling firm) or Save the Plastic Bag have worked to fight anti-plastic bag initiatives.

In 2008, Seattle attempted to require grocery, drug and convenience stores to charge 20-cents per paper and plastic shopping bag. The Coalition to Stop the Seattle Bag Tax is largely funded by two large plastic manufacturer interest groups, the Progressive Bag Affiliates, who condemned plastic bag efforts in Malibu, CA, and the American Chemistry Council. These groups worked to gather over 20,000 signatures to keep the tax from going into effect.

When Washington DC’s City Council proposed a 5-cent fee on all plastic and paper bags, Progressive Bag Affiliates paid for automatically generated calls to residents in low-income neighborhoods, urging them to oppose the ordinance. Plastic bag manufacturers have threatened taxes and controls in the plastic bag battle, consistently choking efforts through legal action.

Cities throughout the world are moving beyond the familiar question, “Paper or plastic?” Though many groups have criticized potentially excessive claims regarding plastic bag pollution and costs, answering “Neither,” and bringing your own bag avoids the figures and unquestionably reduces our growing carbon footprint.