Another One Bites the Dust

Herrrre weeee goOOoow (implied Mario Bros call)…! California cities are out of patience. That’s it. Done. Kaput. Finis. Ciao bella. Sayonara. Adios. EL FIN.

Bags are done. It was fun for a while, but let’s really get real. How many times can you put up with a pack of BPA-suckling inbreds with beet-stained teeth travelling 3000 miles to your little town just to sue you for tidying up your neighborhood? I think the towns’ residents reached have reached their limit, thankyouverrrymuch.

The city of Long Beach, with a grand measure of “encouragement” from the hard-hitting Long Beach Surfrider chapter, voted 6-2 (sorry, not even close) last week to fashion an ordinance to ban single-use plastic bags by next summer. Fabuloso Maximo!

So last month it was unincorporated LA County, now the city of Long Beach…who’ll be next…? Can you say "dominoes"? Hello Clean Beaches! Bravo Surfrider Long Beach!

California tried to be nice about this bag ban stuff this summer via AB1998 – in which the entire state could have had a nice uniform bag ban in place, but nooOOooo…the slack-jawed dingbats at the ACC had to make things difficult on everyone – AND now, themselves. They did their level-best to promote filthy neighborhoods by knocking that bill down with a landslide of payola, and now they should have their hands full suing every Golden State municipality that chooses to clean up their environs and reduce waste that ends up in the ocean. Gentlemen, start yer engines!

I can just hear the ACC parents telling their kids this holiday season, “Sorry Elwood, but we are being forced to spend your Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa pony money to sue every city in California – please accept this thrift-store athletic-support garment instead of the pony this year, OK?...oh, by the way, do you have your law degree yet, hmmmmm?”. What a tired paradigm…perhaps one day they’ll find value in working with bag-banning cities instead of against them, ya think?

It's gettin' dusty out west - NICE!
[Queue the last two seconds of AC/DC’s Shot Down In Flames.]

LA County Cans the Bag!

Great news - the presence of progressive thinkers (or fed-up urban-trash observers) exist in greater Los Angeles County!! AND they have voted to stop allowing retail stores from even offering plastic take-out bags, while enforcing a ten-cent charge for paper bags. Whoa - GUTSY - take that, Sacramento==>>>Wa-BAM!

Like all moves like this - we are in the initial phase: The final ordinance will be drafted and voted on next week, and if approved then, the ban will go into effect on July 1, 2011, for some stores and January 1, 2012 for all stores.

This ordinance is mildly complicated in that it only covers the "unincorporated" areas of LA County. The LA Times article has a great map showing the coverage area. The Fresno Bee offers some other fun insight.

Of course, the leading advocates of the scourge of urban and environmental garbage, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), is threatening to sue the unsuspecting souls of LA in order to continue their assault on the environment (and to maintain the constant fire hose flow of $$$ into their bank accounts)...so stay tuned on that tip.

The whole macadamia was put into neat perspective by Heal The Bay's Mark Gold when he said, "The cost of convenience can no longer be at the cost of the environment for centuries to come."

Amen, hallelujah, HOT-DIGGETY!




[The above image is from a non-Surfrider-affiliated bag retailer, check them out here .]