SEATTLE -- Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and City Council President Richard Conlin on Wednesday proposed a green fee on disposable shopping bags and a ban on foam containers in the food service industry, reported KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

The proposed fee is 20 cents each for disposable bags at the city’s grocery, drug and convenience stores.

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The proposal comes after a recent city-sponsored report found that both paper and plastic are harmful to the environment.

If adopted by the City Council, the waste prevention measures would take effect Jan. 1, 2009.

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Nickels and Conlin said the bag fee and foam ban will cut down on waste, reduce the use of environmentally harmful plastics and cut the production of greenhouse gases.

Seattle Public Utilities officials said they estimated that 360 million disposable bags are used in the city every year and that most are made of plastic. Almost 75 percent of the bags come from the city’s 575 grocery, drug and convenience stores, officials said.

City officials said the green fee is intended to encourage the use of reusable shopping bags and that they will set aside $1 million to distribute the bags and promote their advantages.

The proposed ban on foam containers used by the food service industry would include such items as plates, trays, clamshells and hot and cold beverage cups used at restaurants, delicatessens, fast food outlets and coffee shops, and meat trays and egg cartons used at grocery stores.

The legislation would also require that by July 1, 2010, all food service businesses currently using disposable plastic or plastic-coated paper products convert to packaging that is compostable or locally recyclable.

More than 20 U.S. cities have banned polystyrene food packaging, including Portland, Ore., San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., and Suffolk County, N.Y.

For more information, go to: http://www.seattle.gov/util/bagsandfoam