Ban on plastic crap for America’s Cup

Peoples of The Bay, we have one thing to say to you and one thing only: Put down your plastic! Put it all down we say, and we’ll put ours down. Together we can share the joy of paid-off karma.

Regarding this serious issue, The City intends to show us and the crowds who come for America’s Cup just how serious they are. The Port Commission has rolled out a new “zero waste policy.”

Specifically they mean zero tolerance for plastic products at large events of 5,000 or more on Port property.

There will be many times that many people around the Port for America’s Cup, and our green sensibility will no doubt be noted by countless people from various cities and countries around the globe.

If The City’s priority is to make SF a green American city, the policy is timely, given the covenant to be a sustainable host of the America’s Cup.

Plastic water bottles, utensils, and bags will be banned. Since there’s generally a lot of water drinking going on in the summer and at sailing events, this won’t necessarily be an easy undertaking.

However, Jill Savery head of sustainability for The Cup told The Chron:

 “Our ambition is to be able to provide water refilling stations to the public, we’re hoping this will be a legacy project as well.”

Plastic water bottles, by the way, include carbonated or flavored water. Glacéau has probably hired an entire department to deal with this. It’s not like they don’t sell a gazillion gallons of it a day in San Francisco.

Perhaps a move from the Snapple playbook is in order: the genius idea of bottling in glass.

It’s not going to make sustainable sense for us to refrain from poisoning the earth and its atmosphere in front of visitors, only to continue destroying it a cable car ride away, so we should expect to see this and similar policies implemented all over The City eventually.

It’s high time!