Residents all over California will be urged to bring their reusable bags when shopping, thanks to a law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday that makes the state the nation’s first to ban single-use plastic bags.
The bill, known as SB 270 and authored by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima, prohibits grocery stores and pharmacies from distributing single-use plastic bags after July 2015 and enacts the same ban for convenience stores and liquor stores the following year.
More than 120 local governments — including Santa Barbara and Carpinteria — have approved their own bans on single-use bags after state measures failed in the past due to heavy lobbying from the plastics industry.
Advocates of the ban maintain that single-use bags end up in waterways and the ocean, adding pollution to the environment and taking a toll on marine life.
“This bill is a step in the right direction — it reduces the torrent of plastic polluting our beaches, parks and even the vast ocean itself,” Brown said in a statement Tuesday. “We’re the first to ban these bags, and we won’t be the last.”
Some agencies in Santa Barbara County are already ahead of the game, and the law states that a city, county or other local agency that adopted a ban before Sept. 1 can continue to enforce that set of regulations.
Carpinteria approved a single use bag ban in 2012, and not only bans plastic bags but paper as well.
The City of Santa Barbara approved its own ban last fall and is implementing that decision in phases.
In May, supermarkets and stores with a pharmacy that are 10,000 square feet or larger were required to begin charging 10 cents for paper bags and have reusable bags available for purchase.
Bags used for produce, meat and fish are still allowed, as are plastic trash liners.
On Nov. 14, smaller stores will have to adopt the ban in Santa Barbara.
Kathi King of the Community Environmental Council said her organization has been handing out reusable bags at school carnivals, health fairs and in grocery store parking lots to raise awareness about the ban and get people in the habit of using the bags in preparation for the full implementation.
King said she and her group had been working for six years to get Santa Barbara’s bag ban passed, and that local action enacting bans made all the difference at the state level.
“We got the momentum and that’s what it took,” she said.
The day after Santa Barbara’s ban passed, the City of Los Angeles passed its own ban, and “that was a huge tipping point” for a city of 3 million people to pass such a law, she said.
Statewide, King said the decision to ban the bags will result in 12 billion fewer plastic bags being distributed.
“Other states look to California for leadership,” she said, adding that it’s likely that Tuesday’s decision will spurn others to adopt similar legislation.
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at lcooper@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
