Support AB 1998 to ban the bag!

Around 100 billion plastic bags are thrown away every year in the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal. They fester in our landfills and oceans, taking upwards of 1,000 years to decompose while leaking toxins into the soil and suffocating wildlife.

It’s an issue that has been brewing for quite some time. Now the state of California is taking things to the next level, as Assembly Bill 1998 works it’s way through the state legislature. The bill, if passed, would enact a partial ban on the use of plastic bags in the state of California at supermarkets and other retailers. But the movement toward getting people to switch to reusable bags and ditch the plastic bags has not come without a fight.

While millions of people are hoping that the bag ban takes effect, many others have fought against it, not least because those who make all those plastic bags each year will lose money if the bill is enacted. Others who have publicly opposed banning the plastic bag have cited such reasons as a concern that reusable bags may carry germs, since people may not take the time to properly wash them.

As California pushes on toward banning plastic bags, including recently gaining the support of the Governor, many facts regarding plastic bag use have come to the forefront. In California alone, roughly 19 billion plastic bags are used per year, and that averages out to about 600 bags annually for every person in the state. All those bags add up to approximately 147,000 tons of waste each year. Furthermore, the state spends some $25 million per year to clean up the waste from all these bags, which frequently end up clogging the waterways.

If AB 1998 passes, the bags that are still permitted may have a nickel tax imposed upon them. But when you consider the environmental damage related to the use of plastic bags, the money raised by that new tax would be a drop in the bucket. It takes a tremendous amount of oil to produce and ship plastic bags, and far too many end up harming the environment, often making their way into the oceans, where they contribute to immense garbage patches. Such bags have even been blamed for killing sea turtles.

As the state moves closer to a plastic bag ban, there is no doubt that other states will end up following suit. The sooner we all take reusable bags by the handle and get busy using them, the better. And, to avoid any germ-related risks associated with them, simply make them a regular part of your wash-day routine.

Helpful Links:

Mercury News: Plastic bag fee is a tax you don’t have to pay.

California legislature looks to ban the bag.

Friday, August 6th, 2010 at 11:03 am and is filed under Bag News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.