Plastic bags might be hard to come by today in stores
CITYWIDE There’s paper or plastic, and then there’s paper, plastic or heavy-duty reusable canvas bag.
Consumers might want to opt for the latter when asking their grocery workers to bag their purchased goods today as local environmentalists are making a push to change consumer behavior when it comes to their usage of disposable and ecologically harmful plastic bags.
Retailers and non-profit organizations across Los Angeles County will participate in the first “Day Without a Bag” event today, encouraging consumers to ditch the plastic carriers in favor of a more Earth-friendly mode of transporting products. Santa Monica-based Heal the Bay is sponsoring the day-long campaign, along with various corporations and municipalities, including the city of Santa Monica.
“The intent is to educate people how easy it is to use reusable bags rather than plastic throwaway bags,” said Jessica Belsky, spokeswoman for Heal the Bay. “It makes a huge impact on the environment and our hope is that people will continue to use the reusable bags throughout.”
Each year, Californians use more than 19 billion plastic grocery bags, approximately 6 billion of which come from Los Angeles County, averaging to about 552 bags per person. The usage of plastic bags is believed to generate more than 147,038 tons of waste, which can span the globe more than 250 times, according to figures provided by Heal the Bay. The cost to California taxpayers is in the range of $25 million to collect plastic bags that end up in the landfill every year. The disposable bags oftentimes end up in marine life, consumed by and ultimately killing sea animals that mistake them for food.
Santa Monica businesses will be joining in on the green festivities today, handing out free promotional bags or offering discounts.
All of the 99 Cents Only Stores in the county will be giving away a free reusable bag on purchases of more than $50, while the eco-chic free bags will be distributed at Ralph’s and The Santa Monica Public Library, housed in a LEED-certified environmentally sound building, will remove the plastic bags from its checkout counter and hand out reusable canvas bags upon request.
The modernist-designed library was certified by the U.S. Green Building Council with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design award.
“It’s a LEED-rated building in a very sus-tainability conscious city and we do use a lot of sustainable products... yet we give out these plastic bags,”said Head Librarian Greg Mullen. “That’s a contradiction we want to address.”
Library officials are considering shifting away from the plastic bags to the reusable bags, viewing today’s campaign as the first step in a greener direction.
The library received several hundred shiny canvas bags from Heal the Bay, reading “Happy Holidays, one bag at a time.”
“We’re trying to honor and support the community priorities and this is one of them — sustainability,” Mullen said.
Several cities across the country, including Santa Monica, are considering banning retailers from distributing plastic bags, following the lead of the cities of San Francisco and Oakland which have passed similar bans. The ordinance in Oakland is currently being challenged in court.
The Santa Monica City Council directed city staff to explore such a possibility in the city. City staff presented a proposal, which included a ban on single-use plastic bags from retail stores in Santa Monica, to the Task Force on the Environment on Monday night.
The city staff proposal would have exempted certain businesses that fell under a yet-to-be-determined threshold to avoid affecting the smaller businesses that didn’t use enough bags to warrant the cost of administering and enforcing the ban, said Craig Perkins, the director of Environmental and Public Works. But TFE members felt that an all-out-ban would be more straight forward, Perkins added.
“That’s a perfectly valid approach,” he said. “It’s very clean and clear.”
City staff plans to make a recommendation to council in February, a presentation that will include the pros and cons of a ban, whether a fee should be affixed, and whether the city should allow the use of bio-degrade-able bags that are made from corn starch, something city staff doesn’t agree with because it could still contaminate the recycling stream if some people stick the bags in a regular trash bin rather than a composting bin, Perkins said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 20, 2007. Read the original PDF.