Fewer than 5% of plastic bags are recycled.
It’s hard to believe that Rwanda, a nation nearly destroyed by civil war 15 years ago, has it over Santa Cruz in the eco-conscious department, but there it is: it and 18 other developing nations have banned plastic bags. We haven’t.
At least not yet. On Friday, Aug. 29 mayors and councilmembers from 13 coastal California cities gathered at West Marine in Watsonville for a closed-door session on how to eradicate polystyrene containers and single-use plastic bags. A half-dozen marine protection NGOs and prominent business leaders—including Walter Rob, co-president of the Whole Foods chain, chimed in. Congressman Sam Farr, Assemblymember Bill Monning and former Assemblymember John Laird lent their clout to the proceedings.
After polystyrene, plastic bags are the next target for many coastal communities. The flimsy sacks we take groceries home in—552 of them each year if you’re a Californian—don’t degrade, they just break up into tiny pieces. They get in the waterways and choke marine life. They may be changing the ocean’s chemistry. All good reasons, one might think, to ban them outright.
The resulting resolution from the summit, though, is mildly worded, pledging the signatories to “work together and in our communities reduce and eliminate polystyrene and single-use plastic bags.” Pacific Grove Mayor and summit organizer Dan Cort, who sits on a key council of the nonprofit Oceana, explained why the cities are moving cautiously.
“The industry is so rough,” he said, referring to the plastic bag manufacturers. “They’re suing Palo Alto, Manhattan Beach. I’m not afraid of a battle,” he added. “I’m afraid of 10 million plastic bags in the ocean.”
Monning says the industry senses a threat and is gearing up for a battle royale. “The American Chemistry Council has a $10 million campaign—‘Plastics Are Cool’—targeting kids,” he says. “Because today it’s plastic bags and Styrofoam. Tomorrow it’s all the plastic packaging.”
The war is already on. Last year the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition—not a joke—sued Manhattan Beach over its implementation of a plastic bag ban on grounds that the city hadn’t done an Environmental Impact Report on the increased use of paper bags (again, not a joke). The news hit the Santa Monica City Council just as it was readying a draft ban of its own, says Santa Monica Mayor Ken Genser. “Our attorney said, ‘Let’s just do [the EIR],’ and we decided to work with a consortium of cities creating a Master Environmental Assessment,” says Genser.
That process, which involved eight cities—Palo Alto, San Clemente, Richmond, Manhattan Beach, Pasadena, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Santa Monica—came temporarily to a halt when the state governmental body preparing the assessment lost its funding in the California budget bloodbath. Some of the mayors at Friday’s summit are planning to join the coalition in the hopes that having a master report available to all California cities will forestall CEQA-related lawsuits by the industry.
A number of lively discussions reportedly peppered the day—whether biodegradable plastic is acceptable, what to do with dog poop—but one thing attendees seemed to agree on is that the environmental effects of plastic pollution are far-reaching. “We need to link the environmental debate to the health care debate,” said Monning. “We can have a public option, but if asthma rates are spiking because of all the stuff in the air…”
Jim Ayers, vice-president of the NGO Oceana, put the debate in a larger context. Switching to paper isn’t enough, he said. Recycling isn’t enough. Even carrying a canvas bag isn’t enough.
“We need to change as people. And this is the debate,” he says. “We want people to tell us that we can keep doing what we’re doing and have it be OK. That’s a lie. We can’t keep consuming the way we’re consuming and leave behind a world that’s habitable.
“Recycling is a good idea, but the answer is to consume less and reuse. People have to change more rapidly than they want to.”
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Concerned for CA political process Sun, Sep 06, 2009 - 12:42 pm
What the F*&#...where is the democratic debate and process in closed door policy making!
“On Friday, Aug. 29 mayors and councilmembers from 13 coastal California cities gathered at West Marine in Watsonville for a closed-door session on how to eradicate polystyrene containers and single-use plastic bags.”
—Since when do elected officials start holding closed door sessions with special interest groups that are involved in campaigning like the NGOs that participated? If health care companies did in CA there would be an outrage like never before!
“We need to link the environmental debate to the health care debate,” said Monning.
—So now the health care debate and are intertwined? How did this come to be?
“We need to change as people. And this is the debate,”—but we, the public, were not invited to participate in the debate? Only special interest groups interested in taxes and bans were there to frame the debate in seclusion!
“People have to change more rapidly than they want to.”
—Wow this says alot about where the democratic process is going. We were graded without a study or scientific effidence in our presence and we, the public were provided a failing grade?
Not that we can’t address the environment and changing habits about reducing use and recycling but this is a process gone astray!
Paul Cannella Wed, Sep 09, 2009 - 6:37 am
If the government is tied up due to budget restrictions, we as individual people must rise up and say NO TO PLASTIC. Let them run ads targeting our children and trying to sue us. Vote with your dollars and buy from eco-friendly and responsible companies. Full disclose, I own a company called PoopBags.com that makes 100% biodegradable dog waste bags. While I would love your support, I just ask that you support anyone in the bio-plastics industry. Let’s make plastics the buggy whips of our generation.