A California plastic bag bar was rejected by the state senate on Wednesday. The state had supporters for the ban from Republican Arnold Schwartzenegger, grocers and retailers. Plastic industry lobbyists wanted the ban to pass. You will find now many people who use plastic grocery bags. Human health has changed into a concern since millions of birds and marine animals are now being killed by plastic bags. Many think the bar in The Golden State on plastic bags shouldn’t go via. This is because consumers shouldn’t have to deal with that burden.
Plastic bag issues in California
Plastic bags be allowed in stores in California anymore if the bill passed. It would be the first state with the ban. The public began noticing plastic bag hazards making it so the bill came about, says the Silicon Valley Mercury News. According to the environmental group Conserve the Bay, 1 million plastic bags pollute San Francisco Bay each year. 19 billion plastic bags are used by Californians, says the state official, every year. Collecting plastic bags for landfills costs the state a lot. In fact, it costs about $25 million a year. Yet the lobbying group American Chemistry Council, a coalition of corporations including Chevron, Dow and ExxonMobil, said the plastic bag ban didn’t make sense because it would cost $1.7 million to implement in a state with an $18 billion spending budget deficit.
Plastic industry controls politicians
The American chemistry Council was very against the plastic bag ban in California. Any environmental bills and anti-plastic city ordinances that have opposition are funded by the group. The Miami Herald explains that the company is actually in Virginia, although it funds to California. The council paid off politicians in the campaign. Also, it paid for TV and radio ads to run. In August at least seven state senators collected campaign donations directly from the council or its affiliates Exxon and Hilex Poly Co., a South Carolina plastic bag manufacturer.
Plastic bag ban: why and why not
There was one purpose in the Golden State plastic bag ban. It was to get shoppers to start using reusable totes instead of plastic bags. Bans on plastic bags are already in place in some places in California. San Francisco is one of the places. The bill was authored by assemblywoman Julia Brownley who told ABC News that changing habits of shoppers is a better approach than cleaning up the mess. Mimi Walters, republican senator, explained to ABC News that “If we pass this piece of legislation, we can be sending a message to the individuals of The Golden State that we care more about banning plastic bags than helping them put food on their table.”
The Good Pacific filled with the Garbage Patch
There was an estimate by the EPA of how many plastic bags were made in 2008. About 90 percent of those were tossed. They were just thrown away. According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes via 100 billion plastic buying bags annually at an estimated cost to retailers of $4 billion. In 2006, the U.N. did a study. It showed that 10 percent of all plastic end up at the bottom of the ocean. The Good Pacific Garbage Patch is what we call the place with the most there. The size of the place is about the size of Texas. It also has about 3.5 million tons of trash in it.
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Silicon Valley Mercury News
mercurynews.com/ci_15927563?source=most_emailed and nclick_check=1
Miami Herald
miamiherald.com/2010/08/26/1792991/californias-plastic-bag-ban-opponents.html
ABC News
abcnews.go.com/US/california-votes-plastic-bag-ban/story?id=11526792 and page=1
