CA Bag Ban - What's Next??

Ok…well…”What the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is going on with the California Bag Ban bill?”, I ask myself everyday. To assuage my confusion of CA state government, I've contacted the experts, have sussed it all out, and, employing my superior desktop/spreadsheet/ninja-nerd skills, have created this handy matrix’d cheat-sheet (current as of July 2, 2010) - Click it to enlarge:


So, checking the smart-indicator color-keyed image – it looks like we may be more than half way there. It now sits in the trembling hands of the California State Senate. This is where YOU come in: this is the time to contact a California state senator to let them know that you support The Bill, The Ban and The Environment. Nice!

Here’s how you do it:

Click here to choose your senator.

Click here to sign Surfrider’s Action Alert.

Click here to explore Heal The Bay’s legislator contact options.

Click here to use Environment California’s Action Alert senator-contact tool (with example letter!).

Take your time, mix & match, tell yer ma to do it, but just do it - NOW IS THE TIME.

Meanwhile, for your "Friday-Lite" reading pleasure, our good friends over at the Plastic Pollution Coalition have compiled a list of supporters and opPOSERS of the bill. I have taken that list and eliminated crazeee environmental groups, and/or businesses that could make money on the ban and/or businesses who may lose money due to the ban and...the remainders are below – there are a few surprises (Steven Bochco Productions?)…cheque it out!!

Supporters:
California Grocer’s Association
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
Association of Communities United of South Los Angeles
California Association of Environmental Health Administrators
California State Lands Commission
City of Burbank
City of Del Mar
City of Long Beach
City of Newport Beach
City of Pasadena
City of San Buenaventura
City of San Clemente
City of Solana Beach
City of Ventura
Downtown Encinitas MainStreet Association
East Bay Municipal Utility District
Fresh and Easy Neighborhood Market Inc.
Humboldt County Board of Supervisors
Los Angeles County
Los Angeles County Solid Waste Management Committee/ Integrated Waste Management Task Force
Marin County Board of Supervisors
Monterey County Board of Supervisors
Monterey Regional Waste Management District
Neighborhood Market Association
Planning and Conservation League
PW Supermarkets Inc. (San Jose)
Rite Aid
San Francisco Chamber of Commerce
San Luis Obispo County Integrated Waste Management Authority
Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
Save Mart Supermarkets
Solid Waste Solutions Inc
Alameda County Waste Management Authority
Steven Bochco Productions
Super A Food Inc. (Commerce)
State Lands Commission
Washington Elementary PTA
Western States Council of the United Food & Commercial Workers
WinCo Foods Inc.
Wisdom Academy for Young Scientists
Youth Opportunities for High School and Associations of Communities United of South Los Angeles

Opposers:
Californians for Extended Producer Responsibility
Central California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Corona Chamber of Commerce
Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce
Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce

Have a trash-free July 4th beachy weekend!

Hawai'i's Bag Fee Legislation

So, here I am on my wonderful Hawai’ian vacation (actually free-boardin’ at Mom’s), suckin’ up moco loco & pancakes at Zippy’s, bustin’ out the Honolulu Advertiser, Aloha Friday edition (swell don’t arrive ‘till Monday)…and lo & behold, there is an Op/Ed page piece by Stuart H. Coleman, Surfrider’s own Hawaiian Islands Field Coordinator, concerning a pending state-wide legislative bill that would implement a 5-cent fee for all plastic bags dispensed at grocery checkout. Can we call this “Hawai’I 0-5”? (queue the drums of the TV show theme song.)


Maui and Kaua’i have already enacted county-wide (each island is its own county of the same name) bans that will take effect 1/1/11. There is a chance that the new proposed fee, being statewide, could supersede the outright bans on those two islands. Not what we’d like to see, frankly, but as the saying goes, “somes better’n none”. Stay tuned for that teapot tempest.

Details about the fee (not a “tax”, haole-boy) are in Stu's Op/Ed item and in a local KITV feature report. Of course, we’d love to see a higher fee being proposed, but this may work well here as retailers & legislators both see it as "relatively painless" – and, as we’ve found in places like Washington DC, even a small fee can change the knee-jerk acceptance of these insipid items of environment-threatening instant trash.

Sidebar note: The KITV video also actually shows Stuart doing a bit of grocery shopping too – dispelling any rumors that after becoming “rich and famous”, as the author of the best selling Island-based tomes Eddie Would Go and last year’s Fierce Heart, that he has his own personal shopper taking care of that mundane task - check ‘um out, bra!