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Photo by ninjapoodles via Flickr
On Monday night, Malibu took a big step for the environment: they forbid the distribution of both plastic and compostable carryout bags. It's the most aggressive plastic bag action to date for any Southland city, according to Heal The Bay.
"Grocery stores, food vendors, restaurants, pharmacies and city facilities have six months to comply with the ordinance. Smaller sized retailers have one year until the measure is operative," the eco-conscious organization stated in a press statement. " One-use plastic bags clog landfills, foul our public spaces, waste energy and threaten marine life. California taxpayers spend more than $25 million a year to collect and dispose of the 19 billion one-use plastic shopping bags distributed annually."
Santa Monica is currently in the process of writing a single-use plastic shopping bag ban that would also force stores to charge customers if they request a paper bag.
Further: On Monday, April 14, KCRW held a debate on the plastic bag issue between Kirsten James: Water Quality Director at Heal the Bay and Sharon Kneiss, Vice President, Products Division, American Chemistry Council. If you want to see Kneiss, who represented the pro-plastic bag side of things, give some of the weakest answers in defense of plastic bags, then listen below.
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This is GREAT! All cities should ban them. Nice job Malibu for setting a good example and helping the environment.
"This is GREAT!"
ITA. Gives new meaning to the term BYOB. This is not a huge inconvenience, it just takes a little more planning ahead, and thinking differently.
The benefits to the environent will be HUGE!
There are better solutions than bag reuse. You don't need bags at all. See http://www.autocarts.net for a clever, clean, permanent alternative to bags.
Autocarts are collapsible shopping carts that fit in vehicles and eliminate the need for paper or plastic altogether.
We definitely need to educate the public on Autocarts, if we want to defeat the bag problem permanently.