California poised to ban plastic bags [Updated]

Legislation that would ban many California stores from giving away single-use plastic bags has taken a step closer to becoming law.  AB 1998 was passed by the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Friday and will be voted upon next Friday by the full Assembly. If passed and signed by the governor, the law would go into effect Jan. 1, 2012.

Each year, Californians use 19 billion plastic bags, only 5% of which are recycled, according to the California Integrated Waste Management Board. The average California resident uses 600 plastic bags per year.

"This legislation starts breaking our addiction to single-use plastic packaging, which has gotten completely out of control," said Mark Gold, president of Heal the Bay, a Santa Monica-based environmental group supporting AB 1998. 

"We've been pushing on this a really long time -- for six years through four different legislative vehicles," said Gold, adding that previous efforts to reduce plastic bag use by charging customers a per-bag fee had failed to garner support, especially in a down economy. "Hopefully, persistence will pay off for the oceans."

Over the past couple of years, numerous California cities have proposed plastic-bag bans; five cities have passed them, including Malibu and San Francisco.

Uniformity is the main reason the California Grocers Assn. is supporting the bill.

"There have been a number of different proposals and different cities have approached this in different ways," said Dave Heylen, spokesman for the California Grocers Assn. in Sacramento, a group that represents 500 retail grocery companies that operate 8,000 stores in California. "This bill would impact supermarkets, chain pharmacies, local neighborhood markets, convenience stores and liquor stores, so this bill provides a uniform statewide standard to help level the playing field among food retailers."

Heylen added that a ban on single-use, carry-out bags bring the most environmental gain with the least competitive disruption for retailers.

"We think this could be historic legislation that is a model for other states to follow," said Gina Goodhill, oceans advocate for the L.A.-based environmental group, Environment California.

[Updated on June 1 at 3:45 p.m.: The American Chemistry Council, however, opposes the bill, primarily for economic reasons. According to Tim Shestek, the council's director of state affairs, the legislation could "eliminate or put at risk 500 or so good-paying manufacturing jobs in the industry, primarily in the L.A. area," he said. Shestek said the bill could also cost the state $1.5 million in new spending to implement the program, and it runs the risk of raising costs for consumers who forget to bring reusable bags to the store and who would be required to buy the 40% post-consumer, recycled wastepaper bags provided for in the legislation.]

-- Susan Carpenter

Photo: Heal the Bay

Comments

[Jay]

It's about time this stuff is banned!!!

(And kick out all the racists while you're at it.)

[JoeJoe]

Plastoc bags are not the problem. Filthy disgusting people who don't dispose of their garbage properly is the real problem. Another problem is the filthy, sub-humans who go through other people's neatly packed trash, tearing it apart in a search for deposit bottles and cans. Every week some filthy pig goes through our dumpster, tears all the garbage bags open and then leaves the dumpster uncovered so the wind can blow the now loose trash all over the place. Again it gets back to illegal immigration: get rid of these filthy pigs and many problems will be solved.

[LKF]

The enviro-pagans are completely out of touch with reality. The whole World uses these bags. Nothing more than nany government and elected officials willing to pander to the leftist-kook idiology. Nothing wrong with these bags...

[Tom]

And we will replace them with what and paid for by whom? Heal The Bay? Tax credits available to all consumers regardless of income level?

What is conveniently concealed from this story by the dems and their lackeys at the Times is that you'll be paying for them - equivalent to a new tax. Thank you California democrat party.

[DanielG]

I cannot believe what a huge waste of time and effort this bill is. Of all of the things wrong with California , Out of Control budget, Highest Taxes in the US, Losing teachers while gaining useless government workers... No PLASTIC BAGS ! This is suppose to be "historic" ?? This is the primary reason our legislature needs to be on a part-time basis. This is what happens when they have too much time on their hands.

[woof-woof]

Now I'll have to buy plastic bags to use as trash bags. For me, this will do nothing but raise costs.