Santa Cruz joined San Jose, San Francisco, and other cities in the Bay Area yesterday when the council endorsed a ban on single-use plastic bags and a fee on paper bags. Plastic bags, which do not decompose, are a major source of litter, filling coastal areas and rivers before they make their way to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In the Bay Area alone, people use an estimated 3.8 billion bags every year. On average, they end up in the trash just 12 minutes after people get them.
Officials throughout Santa Cruz County are hoping to make the ban countywide, the better to defend against any potential lawsuits from the pro-plastic bag lobbyists at Save The Plastic Bag. That group has managed to get Oakland to place a moratorium on its own efforts to ban plastic bags. Before Santa Cruz County can enact a ban, however, it will have to produce an environmental impact report, which will cost about $100,000.
Santa Cruz Mayor Mike Rotkin believes it would be more helpful to encourage people bring their own bags when they shop if they were charged a fee for plastic bags. The problem, he says, is that such a fee is forbidden under California law. Go figure. Read more at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
