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Loading...BREAKING: LA County Bans Plastic Bags
With a 3-1 vote in favor of the measure, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors passed a sweeping ban on plastic grocery bags in unincorporated areas of the county.
The ban will affect nearly 1.1 million residents countywide and has been called one of the nation’s most aggressive environmental measures to date.
The official measure reads: “No store shall provide to any customer a plastic carryout bag.” Plastic bags that are used to hold fruit, vegetables or raw meat in order to prevent contamination with other grocery items will be exempt from the ban.
Grocers that continue to offer plastic bags will be required to charge customers 10 cents per bag, according to the ordinance. The revenue will be retained by the stores to purchase the paper bags and educate customers about the law (LA Times).
In late August, heavy and costly lobbying by plastic bag manufacturers prevented the California state Senate from passing a state-wide plastic bag ban, despite the support of the state Assembly and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, the only official to vote against the ban, cautioned that small businesses could suffer financially because of the ban. Antonovich also worries that low-income people could be forced to begin buying bags to pick up pet waste or carry their lunch.
It’s still possible for the measure to be legally challenged.
Similar plastic bag bans passed in San Francisco and Malibu are less strict because they don’t involve a surcharge. Environmental advocates of banning plastic bags say these measures provide no incentive for consumers to switch to reusable cloth bags, the most eco-friendly option.
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Read more: environment & wildlife, la county, landfill, plastic bag ban, plastic bags, recycling, reusable bags, success story, waste
Image Credit: reusablebags.typepad.com
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+ add your ownMolto bene.
This is so much better for the envirment if onle we could ban this further than the LA County
Thank you for the sharing of this much needed result.
This is good news since environmental degradation is a problem the world over. The official measure reads: “No store shall provide to any customer a plastic carryout bag.” Plastic bags that are used to hold fruit, vegetables or raw meat in order to prevent contamination with other grocery items will be exempt from the ban. Polythene bags have also been banned in my country Uganda. Hope more countries follow suit.
bin liners
Yay, this is a strong sign of the shift in consciousness!
Noted...thanx
I'm so glad that they put a ban on plastic bags, it is a step in the right direction. Everyone should stick to cloth (which is paint/lead free!). If everyone used cloth bags it would cut down our plastic use by millions of tons. This plastic is wreaking havoc on our environment, and especially our oceans, where most trash ends up anyways.
. A fiction novel, written by Four Arrows, called "Last Song of the Whales" shows how deeply humans and animals share this world, and that it is our responsibility to protect the planet. It is about the connection that a man has with a whale who takes him out to sea in his mouth, and shows him the death and destruction that humans and pollution are having on all of the species of the ocean. Please read this fascinating novel! You can buy it for only $16.95 on Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Song-Whales-Four-Arrows/dp/0984555250/ref=si_aps_sup?ie=UTF8&qid=1293576451&sr=8-1
It's a step in the right direction..
Don't be fooled... The plastic bags are not really banned. The stores are now charging .10 for each bag. as a L.A. resident, some will stop using them but a great many will pay the .10 due to convenience.
Don't be fooled... The plastic bags are not really banned. The stores are now charging .10 for each bag. as a L.A. resident, some will stop using them but a great many will pay the .10 due to convenience.
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