Moving ahead in our Great Pacific Cleanup

Bill to ban plastic bags passes Assembly, heads to Senate

On June 2, the California Assembly passed a ban on plastic shopping bags (AB 1998), putting us one step closer to becoming the first state to ban plastic shopping bags.

Too much of our single-use plastic trash ends up in the ocean, where it is can harm wildlife or even kill who mistake floating plastic for food. For example, sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish.

Our Great Pacific Cleanup campaign has focused on two of the worst offenders when it comes to plastic pollution of our ocean: Styrofoam takeout containers and throwaway plastic bags.

Every year, California uses 165,000 tons of Styrofoam and an estimated 19 billion plastic bags—which, if you strung them end to end, could cover the distance between the Earth and the moon 15 times.

Assemblymember Julia Brownley (Santa Monica)  sponsored a ban on plastic shopping bags. Environment California’s Goodhill joined Assemblymember Brownley in coauthoring an op-ed, which appeared in the Ventura County Star, on the issue.

We’re also working at the local level to make progress on this, and keep the pressure on state lawmakers. Taking our campaign to San Diego and Los Angeles, we're urging the cities to ban Styrofoam takeout containers and plastic bags. We’re building steam in Santa Cruz, where the county board of supervisors has come out in support of a plastic bag ban. In Marin County, we submitted testimony to help pass a local ban.

Our final push to pass the bill in the Assembly

With the American Chemistry Council fighting the statewide ban on plastic bags with all their might, we marshaled our forces for one last push.

The deadline for bills to be passed out of their house of origin is June 4, and this bill came down to the wire. In the last week, we help send more than 10,000 e-mails to legislators in favor of the ban on plastic bags.

As we approached the last few days, we held five press conferences, which received press coverage all over the state (31 different media outlets covered our events). Celebrities Amy Smart, Rosario Dawson and Rachelle Lefevre flew up to Sacramento to advocate for the bill. Together, we met with legislator after legislator to shore up support for our ban.

When the bill came up four votes shy on the first roll call, we reached out to our members to help with last-minute phone calls and e-mails. In the end, our final efforts proved to be sufficient, as the bill narrowly passed out of the Assembly.

You can read more in the coverage by the New York Times, the L.A. Times and the SF Gate.

Governor vetoes smoking ban for state beaches

Beachgoers would see less litter, coastal wildlife would be subjected to less toxic pollution, and fewer plastics would reach the Great Pacific Garbage Patch if the governor had signed a ban on smoking on state beaches—which was passed by the state Legislature in April. But in May, the governor vetoed this measure.

Cigarette butts are the most common litter found in beach cleanups. According to the Los Angeles Times, an astounding 340,221 butts were picked up by volunteers on a single day in 2009.

While many people believe that cigarette filters biodegrade, the fact is they don’t: They’re made of cellulose-acetate, a kind of plastic. They’re often washed out to sea and can become part of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—an area of the ocean churning with small pieces of plastic that’s twice the size of Texas. These filters are toxic to the birds and other animals that can mistake them for food.

After meeting with Environment California’s Gina Goodhill, The Los Angeles Times editorial board endorsed the measure before it passed, writing: “The state has an obligation to keep its beaches and parks as clean as possible, especially when the litter contains toxic substances.”