AB 1998 (Brownley) would ban plastic bags from supermarkets. The bill has passed the Assembly on June 2, and will head to the Senate next.
Brief Summary
1,000 miles off the California coast, in an area known as the central North Pacific gyre, there is a floating island of plastic that spans nearly 5 million square miles, roughly the size of the United States plus India combined. Ocean pollution, or marine debris, is one of the biggest threats to our ocean ecosystem, economy, and tourism industry. Plastic makes up the largest percentage of this marine debris: 60-80 percent of all marine debris is plastic. Marine debris affects 267 species worldwide. Animals often eat bits of plastic that they mistake for food, and endure internal injuries, intestinal blockage, and starvation. Birds mistake plastic for nesting material, and sea turtles find their hatching migration blocked by plastic debris. Other animals suffer suffocation, drowning and entanglement, as plastic debris fill up the areas that they call home. This plastic contamination results in severe injuries or death for many animals. Plastic debris also acts as the perfect material on which persistent organic pollutants latch. These pollutants are then able to travel freely around the ocean ecosystem.
Annually, marine debris is growing at an alarming rate. Eighty percent of pollution in the ocean comes from land pollution. Plastic bags are a huge source of this plastic pollution, as is Polystyrene, a type of plastic used in food packaging, such as clear plastic cups and containers. Foamed versions of this plastic, such as expanded polystyrene (EPS) and extruded polystyrene (commonly known as Styrofoam™) are also frequently used. Californians use 165,000 tons of polystyrene each year for packaging food, with no recycling options available. As a non-biodegradable plastic, it lasts for hundreds of years and can float hundreds of miles away from where it was released. In California, 15% of the total volume of litter recovered from storm drains is polystyrene. Finally, cigarette butts constitute a final category of debris. Environment California is supporting three bills this year to regulate and reduce plastic bags pollution, polystyrene, and cigarette butts.
