Los Angeles City Leaps Aboard Plastic Bag Ban Wagon
by Sarah (Steve) Mosko, PhD
Other versions of this article have appeared in:
- Vall-E-Vents, Sierra Club San Fernando Valley, Jul/Oct 2012
- Southern Sierran as Why L.A.’s Plastic Bag Ban Matters, July/Aug 2012.
- Fullerton Observer as Plastic Bag Ban: Will Fullerton Follow City of L.A.’s Lead? Early June, p. 10.
- Surf City Voice as L.A. Poised to Ban Plastic Bags: Surf City Vote Hinges on EIR Cost, 10 April, 2012
- Santa Monica Daily Press, 09 April, 2012
Will the ban on plastic bags in L.A. be the tipping point for a statewide ban?
The “City of Angels” just joined a growing web of four dozen California jurisdictions banning single-use, plastic carry-out bags.On May 23, the L.A. City Council cast a near unanimous vote 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 consider after two years whether a ban on paper was needed depending on whether enough people had switched to reusable bags, the real goal of the plastic ban. A bag ordinance is expected to be enacted before year’s end, and a six-month grace period will follow so consumers can adjust and to allow stockpiles of plastic bags to be used up. The ban will not include the plastic bags used for fresh produce or meats.The L.A. Bureau of Sanitation estimates that the city uses 2.3 billion plastic bags and 400 million paper bags a year and that the bag recycling rate is only 5% for plastic and 21% for paper. The rest end up in landfills or, worse still, as litter.
The “Save the Plastic Bag Coalition,” a group of plastic bag makers and distributors, is putting forth an all-out effort to block the spread of plastic bag bans within the state through legal challenges. In March, L.A. County’s 2010 ordinance banning plastic bags and placing a 10-cent fee on paper bags was upheld in Superior Court. Other California jurisdictions which have enacted similar bans include the cities of 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.
Posted by Sarah (Steve) Mosko 
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