Mexico City bans stores from distributing plastic bags

On Wednesday, hundreds of stores in Mexico City have become green after a new law that will order businesses to stop selling thin plastic bags that are not biodegradable.

This latest law in Mexico City will affect stores, production facilities and services within the city, which currently holds 9 million and 10 million more surround the communities, according to The New York Times. Mexico City has become the second largest metropolitan city to outlaw plastic bags in the United States. San Francisco enacted a similar law in March 2007. Los Angeles will also soon create a law outlawing plastic bags. This will occur only if the state of California begins to charge its consumers a 25-cent fee per bag by July 2010. At the present time, 90 per cent of plastic bags sold in the U.S. are not recyclable Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program, said that plastic bags is the second most common form of littering with cigarette butts being the first, "Thin-film, single-use plastic bags, which choke marine life, should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere. There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere." Many countries to impose this law are increasing. China, Tanzania, Canada, Australia, Italy, Taiwan and South Africa are the latest. In Tanzania it is much more serious. Selling plastic bags can come with a six-month jail sentence and/or fine of 1.5 million shilling, which $1,437.