Either California ’s first - in - the - nation plastic bag ban is working really well or volunteer litter hunters are abruptly doing a horrifying business .
Last November , California voters passed Proposition 67 , upholding a prohibition on undivided - use plastic pocketbook passed by the nation ’s lawmakers in 2014 . A yr later , preliminary datafrom thousands of volunteers who collected trash during California ’s Coastal Cleanup Day in September come along to show a remarkable driblet in shaping base food waste .
Compared to 2010 , formative bag bedding has dropped by around 72 percent . Plastic traveling bag now account for less than 1.5 percent of all litter , rather than about 10 percent . In Monterey County south of San Francisco , volunteers find only 43 plastic bags during the clean - up , compared to just under 2,500 in 2010 .
The coastal cleanup position , which covered some 1,800 miles across the country , had already testify a pregnant drop-off in plastic bags thanks to educational efforts and local forbiddance , and 2017 builds on that trend . In 2010 , moldable cup of tea come in in third behind cigarette stub and debauched food promotional material as most frequently littered items , fit in to data point from Coastal Cleanup Day . Now they appear to have descend out of the top ten most littered point .
“ For decennary , plastic bag were one of the most unwashed items collected during the annual California coastal cleansing , ” state John Laird , California Secretary for Natural Resources , in a statementregarding the news . “ This twelvemonth , as California bear on to transition to reusable udder , we are seeing a substantial decay in pliant market bag litter on beaches , rivers and parkway . ”
Before the statewide constabulary went into gist , over 100 metropolis and counties across the state had passed their own bag ban . The statewide ban crook cheap , single - use charge plate bags , and demand market storehouse to charge 10 cents for paper bags or dense , recyclable plastic bag that are mean to carry more and last longer . Of naturally , shopper can always bring their own bags , or carry everything in their arms if they choose . The law didleave a carve - outallowing single - use base to proceed to be used for meat , bread , make , perishables , and bulk items . These are the even more flimsy seeming travelling bag you employ to put your apples or burger meat in , not the ones used for pile grocery at the check register .
“ When I took on the problem of plastic old bag pollution four years ago , California retailers were diffuse more than 19 billion single - use charge card old bag every class , ” say California Secretary of State Alex Padilla , the author the country law ostracize individual use plastic bags , in a instruction . “ Today , that phone number is zero . Once again California is leading the way , creating cleaner communities for all . ”
The upgrade of formative bag forbidding in localities across the country has lead to a corollaryrise in bans on fictile bag bans , with at least four states — Michigan , Idaho , Arizona , and Missouri — having such “ preemptive ” laws in place . These forbidding BAN are ostensibly mean to prevent unreasonable financial harms to industry trust on charge plate bags , such as restaurants and retail merchant , and to also save jobs from being lose in the plastic bag manufacturing sector . Basically , a new rule to prevent a different new ordinance . Go figure .
San Francisco , which became the first metropolis to ban plastic cup of tea back in 2007 , of late commence accept them in curbside recycling , which is a challenge due to the material nature of the handbag . Meanwhile , New York City , de facto home of the plastic grip when it comes to takeout , iscaught up in a legislative sagaover a fictile bag proscription with no end in view .
Bag bans are also get on globally , and 40 other land have either ban , part banned or taxed individual use plastic travelling bag . China censor credit card bags thinner than .025 millimetersin 2008 , France instituted a full ban on lightweight plastic bags at checkoutcounters in 2016 , andthe European Union announced in 2016that by 2019 , penis land had to shrink formative bag consumption to no more than 90 bags per person a year .
allot to the Earth Policy Institute , a trillion single - use credit card bags are used each year , come up out to almost two million udder each minute . Many of these bags end up in waterways and eventually as part of the epic ocean pollution problem . More than eight milliontons of plastic are dumped into oceans every class .
And yes , substituting one more durable bag for a number of one - off bags is not necessarily more environmentally well-disposed . It depends on where that other pocketbook come from and what it ’s made out of , otherwise known as a bag ’s life - cycle . For example , if you are using a cotton bag , you need to use it about 131 multiplication to make up for the environmental footprint before it becomes preferred to a individual - use pliant handbag , according to KQED . While that might seem like a lot , we ’re sure you ’ve got this one in the bag .
“ Plasticbags are just one root of plastic befoulment , ” Mark Murray , Executive Director of Californians Against Waste , told Earther . “ Already more than 100California urban center and county have take up local ordinances to phaseout individual - usefast nutrient packaging that can not be reprocess or composted . We expect thelegislature to take this outcome up in the next twelvemonth or two . ”
“ Generally , I think the new standard for consumers will be : ‘ If I ca n’t put it inmy reuse bin or compost it , then I do n’t need it , ’ ” he said .
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