Ban the Plastic Bag!!

Hello friends of Santa Cruz Rivers And Parks! As we continue to do our monthly clean-ups we've realized that the majority of the items we're picking up are plastic bags. The following bill is on it's way to the State Senate. We need your support to get it passed.

On June 2 the State Assembly passed AB 1998, aka the Ban the Plastic Bag Bill. AB 1998, introduced by Julia Brownley D-Santa Monica, is an effort to 'wean Californians' from the plastic bag habit and begin to cease the environmental devastation caused by plastic.

"We have long passed the point of simply cutting our six-pack rings to save marine life. Photos abound of turtles eating plastic bags — cute until you learn they died — and autopsied birds stuffed like piñatas with bottle caps. I have introduced a new bill this year, AB1998, which would ban plastic bags and impose a fee on paper bags to wean Californians off their nasty bag habit. We’ve cut other nasty habits, we can cut this habit, too."

The Bill will move to the Senate Policy Committee, then probably a few more hoops, then to the Senate for a vote and only then does AB 1998 become California law.

THE UGLY FACTS

As stated in AB 1998:

-The North Pacific Gyre in the Pacific Ocean is home to largest garbage dump of plastic trash, now estimated to be the size of the United States and is increasing rapidly.

-According to the California Coastal Commission, the majority of marine debris is composed of plastic materials; 60 to 80 percent overall and 90 percent of floating debris is plastic.

-Only 5 percent of plastic carryout bags are recycled and the rest either take up valuable landfill space or are discarded in the environment

-Plastics made from bio-based sources that are marketed as "compostable" or "biodegradable" have not been shown to degrade in aquatic environments and require conditions only available in composting facilities to rapidly break down into constituents that assimilate back into the environment.

THE BILL

AB 1998 states the following:

-After July 2011 large retail stores-ya know the big boxes, supermarkets, etc -will be prohibited from providing a plastic carryout bag to a customer.

-Stores will provide old-growth-free paper carryout bags and charge the customer a $0.05 fee at the time of sale. With the fees collected a Plastic Bag Pollution Cleanup Fund will be created to provide grants to counties and cities to provide reusable bags to their citizens and partner with nonprofit community-based organizations, for purposes of litter cleanup activities.


Read AB 1998 in its entirety


WHAT YOU CAN DO

In addition to actively removing plastic bags from rivers and parks in Santa Cruz with SCRAP on the first Saturday of every month, you can take action and send letter of support of AB 1998 to Sen. Joe Simitian.

And why stop there....in your letter demand that the reusable bags that retailers, counties and cities either sell or give away are FAIR TRADE and MADE IN THE USA.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT OF THIS IMPORTANT CAUSE!

-The SCRAP team