But On the Positive Side, They Got Rid of Plastic Bags
The City of San Francisco seems to have odd litter preferences. After a huge program to ban and/or charge for plastic bags to get them out of the litter stream ( a program that for all my whining about it seems to have achieved that goal pretty well), the city seems to have substituted used syringes:
City Health Director Barbara Garcia estimated in 2016 that there were 22,000 intravenous drug users in San Francisco - around one for every 38.9 residents, while the city hands out roughly 400,000 needles per month.
Of the 400,000 needles distributed monthly, San Francisco receives around 246,000 back - meaning that there are roughly 150,000 discarded needles floating around each month - or nearly 2 million per year, according to Curbed.
I am pretty sure if they were to divert some of their plastic bag tax revenue to paying 5 cents per needle on return (or about $20,000 a month) that the needles would disappear from the streets in a matter of days. Not sure if this would create some problems with safety or new crime incentives, but I would l think it would be worth a try.
