Why L.A.'s plastic bag ban matters

The City of Angels in May joined four dozen California jurisdictions banning single-use, plastic carry-out bags. L.A. is the largest city in the nation to approve such a ban – an issue that has been a priority for the Angeles Chapter’s Zero Waste Committee.

Chapter members have been active on this issue and rallied at City Hall on May 23, hours before the L.A. City Council voted almost unanimously to ban the flimsy “T-shirt” style carry-out bags and to phase in a 10-cent fee on paper bags.

An earlier proposal also included a ban on paper bags, but the Council decided instead to wait two years to decide whether a ban on paper was needed or whether enough people had switched to reusable bags, the real goal of the plastic ban. The bag ordinance is expected to be enacted before year’s end and a six-month grace period will follow so consumers can adjust to the change and retailers can use up their stockpiles of plastic bags. The ban does not include plastic bags used for fresh produce or meats.

Winding up in landfills

Why is a plastic bag ban so important? The L.A. Bureau of Sanitation estimates that the city uses 2.3 billion plastic bags and 400 million paper bags a year, while the bag recycling rate is only 5% for plastic and 21% for paper. The rest end up in landfills or, worse still, as litter.

Plastic bag litter is not only an eyesore on land but also fouls waterways like the L.A. River and kills marine animals who mistake the bags for food. Plastic bags are a significant source of ocean pollution because they are made from natural gas, a non-renewable resource, and do not biodegrade. They fragment over time into bits of plastic thought to persist in the ocean environment beyond any meaningful human timescale.

The Long Beach-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation has measured the buildup up of plastic debris in an area of the Pacific twice the size of Texas and dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which, in 1999, already contained six times more plastic than zooplankton. Analysis of ocean samples collected a decade later indicates that the ratio of plastic to plankton has risen six-fold. Even off the coast of Southern California, Algalita has found plastic debris at all ocean depths in amounts sometimes twice that of zooplankton.

In March, the 2010 ordinance by L.A. County that banned plastic bags and placed a 10-cent fee on paper bags was upheld in Superior Court. Other California jurisdictions which have enacted similar bans include San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Palo Alto, Santa Clara and San Jose in the northern region and Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Santa Monica, Calabasas and Malibu in the south. Many more ban ordinances are in the works across the state, including in Pasadena, Dana Point, Laguna Beach and Huntington Beach, to name a few. The Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, a group of plastic bag makers and distributors, is putting forth a tremendous effort to block this spread of plastic bag bans in California through legal challenges.

Court decision in Manhattan Beach

A California Supreme Court decision in July 2011 eased the way for local plastic bag bans by ruling that Manhattan Beach, because it is a small community, did not have to complete an environmental impact report (EIR) about disposable paper bags before baring retailers from dispensing plastic ones. A bill proposing a statewide ban failed in 2010, even though it was supported by the California Grocers Association on the basis that the patchwork, city-by-city bans create confusion for both retailers and shoppers (AB 1998).

Opponents of the ban, representing the plastic bag trade and a lobbying group for the plastics industry, had argued that a ban would cost jobs and that paper bags are just as bad for the environment because of the energy used to make them. If California had passed a ban, it would have been the first of its kind in the nation, though Hawaii has since become the first state with plastic bag bans in every jurisdiction.

The fact remains that throwaway plastic bags are wasteful and easily replaced by reusable bags. The fast pace at which local bans are cropping up in California hopefully signals the end of the single-use, plastic bag era.

Sarah Mosko is an activist with the Angeles Chapter. Read more environmental articles by her at www.BoogieGreen.com.

Photo: Angeles Chapter volunteers, from left: Hillary Gordon, chair of the Zero Waste Committee; volunteer Sharon Ford; and Conservation Coordinator Jennifer Robinson rally to support the plastic bag ban at L.A. City Hall. The measure passed successfully.