The Plague that is the plastic bag, in photos

That's the L.A. River above, awash with plastic bags after rain. The photo's a part of Guardian UK's 8-picture series on plastic bags, ugging up places from China to Somalia to everywhere in between.

What are we doing in L.A.? The L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted for a voluntary program to reduce the use of plastic bags -- A disappointing move, because voluntary programs in other places have proved to be ineffective.

In contrast, the City of Santa Monica voted to draft an ordinance banning plastic bags outright. The ordinance now needs to get passed and implemented, but hopefully by 2009, we won't see any more plastic bags coming out of stores in this city by the beach. After all, plastic blight on the beaches isn't going help attract tourist dollars --

Write your city councilmember to voice your support for a ban on plastic bags in your city. Angelenos: Locate your councilmember by going here, scrolling down, then putting in your addy under "My Neighborhood" in the right column.

Photo by David McNew/Getty Images

Comments

[stephanie marshall]

i agree with allof it but there should be more pictures so people can see what it looks like a take notice .....

[johnny lucid]

You should have pictures that catch people in the act of being careless with plastic bags or intentionally littering....

[m]

People should go out to the Heal the Bay Coastal Cleanup days. It is incredibly eye opening, especially along the LA River sites. You can spend hours and hours picking up endless numbers of bags, snack wrappers, bottles, clothing and who knows what else, only to realize, you'd have to do the same thing for months to actually get everything cleaned up.

[Lisa]

Yes, some people are careless but I tell my friends, in a blameless way, that we need to get rid of plastic bags cuz they blow away so easily and get in the waterstream. It's a numbers game--in a dense urban area there are so many of us that even unintentional pollution would cause all the crap we see in the water.

Whoa, I was out in Northridge the other day and man they get wind. It was trash day and trash cans were toppled and stuff blowing all over.

Lisa