Huntington Beach, CA, the first city in Orange County, decided in a 4-3 vote by the City Council to ban single-use carry-out plastic bags. The ordinance means that retailers cannot give out plastic bags to customers for their purchases.
The decision was made after the City Council listened to concerned citizens on both sides of the issue. There were expert and persuasive testimony presented by Anna Cummins, co-founder of the 5 Gyres Institute. Ms. Cummins stated that, “ The plastics in the ocean form debris fields, known as “gyres. The 5 Gyres Institute studies solutions to the situation, and says plastics are a tremendous problem, “In the marine environment because plastics are designed to last forever. They don’t break down, they can’t be digested by marine organisms and kill them” and they persist in the ocean for thousands of years.” Think about your future “ocean views,” and the image forming is a bit depressing.
Bill Hickman, Regional Coordinator for Southern California Surfrider Foundation pointed out numerous statistics on how current recycling programs fall short by over 90% in the recycling of single-use bags and why banning the bags just like 12 other California cities is the most effective way.
According to City Councilwoman, Connie Boardman, the city council along with local environmental groups such as the Huntington Beach Surfrider Foundation has been studying the issue for one year. The city has been promoting recycling but has determined that the recycling effort is not completely effective as the very light weight bags are easily blown out of trash containers. While only 1% of the waste stream, plastic bags are 25% of the county’s litter.
The ordinance will force retailers to charge customers 10 cents for a bag if they don’t have their own reusable bag. The fee amount was determined by surveying retailers and 10 cents is about the cost of a paper bag to the retailer. Large retailers in Huntington Beach such as Albertson’s are already in the process of switching over to paper and re-usable bags.
When asked why charging a fee instead of encouraging biodegradable bags or compostable bags, Ms. Boardman gave three reasons why the idea wouldn’t work:
1. This is simply replacing one litter source with another
2. There are no composting facilities in Orange County to properly dispose of the bags
3. Including the bags in recycling material would contaminate untold batches of good recyclable material
Studies have shown that consumers are already paying a hidden fee of about $50 per year by supermarkets increasing the cost of their goods to pay for the bags.
The ordinance is set to take effect sometime in 2012 to give the city staff ample time to study the best way implement the ordinance and the city’s retailers time to exhaust its present inventory of the plastic bags.. The ordinance was modeled after the City of Long Beach’s recently passed ban.
Photo Credit: Tim Mendez / Tony Soriano
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News articles on Banning the Plastic Bag in Huntington Beach, CA.
http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2011/08/hb-city-council-to-consider-plastic-bag-ban/
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Huntington-Beach-City-Council-127754888.html
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=8305947
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/huntington-beach-to-ban-plastic-bags.html
http://www.ocregister.com/news/bags-311929-plastic-ban.html
Check out this cool APP for remembering your Reusable Bag when you go to a store: http://www.grab-your-bags.info/
Wells Fargo Volunteers join Surfrider to keep local beaches clean! Wells Fargo team members join forces with up to 400 Surfrider volunteers from the Huntington Beach/Seal Beach chapter twice a month, removing an average of 400 pounds of trash from our local beaches during the 4-hour beach clean-up. Trash doesn’t fall from the sky, it falls from human hands. And human hands have the power to stop it.
