Dream come true: Los Angeles bans PLASTIC bags
It's true!!!! Los Angeles finally banned plastic bags beginning in 2012 in over 1,000 stores. I've been wishing this for as long as I could remember. Between the disgusting, overused, under recycled plastic bags and the unrecyclable Styrofoam, I've been dying. At least one side of the equation will be fixed!
The goal, officials say, is to get people to adopt reusable bags made of cloth or durable plastic that can be wiped clean. An exception is being made for produce bags that keep raw vegetables and meats from being contaminated by other groceries.
"Plastic bags are a pollutant. They pollute the urban landscape. They are what we call in our county urban tumbleweed," said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.
"they end up threatening rare, valuable, marine life in our oceans and degrading one of this country's great environmental and economic resources: the Pacific Coast."
n Los Angeles County alone, 6 billion plastic bags are used each year, an average of 1,600 bags per household a year. Government figures show that only about 5% are recycled.
Mark Gold, president of the Santa Monica environmental group Heal the Bay, said previous county efforts to promote recycling of plastic bags at grocery stores was a failure. "You cannot recycle your way out of the plastic bag problem," Gold said. "The cost of convenience can no longer be at the expense of the environment."
How could there actually be people out there OPPOSED to this ban? incredible.
"It would be better and more effective to have a statewide ban rather than a patchwork of local ordinances," said Dave Heylen, a spokesman for the California Grocers Assn., which supported the statewide ban proposed by Assemblywoman Julia Brownley (D- Santa Monica). AGREED. but happy with something rather than nothing! yay for CHANGE!
see full article here: LA Times