Ban The Bag, Fall 2016

HELP GET OUT THE VOTE –
TO PASS 67 AND DEFEAT 65!

County List        Resources below

By Portia Sinnott, NCRA News Editor and Zero Waste USA Program Director
California’s statewide Plastic Bag Ban (SB270) was signed into law by Governor Brown in late 2014. Implementation has been substantially delayed by the gathering of 800,000 referendum signatures to ratify the new law or reject it. The cost of collecting the signatures came to $3,105,362. That’s about $6.15 per required signature.

The referendum was initiated by Doyle Johnson of Fight The Plastic Bag Ban, who claims he is “not associated with any plastic bag manufacturer or any other commercial interest.” Regardless of his associations, the industry has invested more than $5 million to rescind the law and is surely poised to spend much more before November 8.

As a group and as individuals, we must commit substantial time and dollars this August, September and October to insure Proposition 67 is passed by a wide margin and Proposition 65 fails. The Surfrider Foundation graphic below lists the top 10 reasons why bag bans are so important. (Click here for a larger version.) Please use it and the resources below to prepare your talking points and then figure out what actions you will initiate or take part in. Personally, I don’t want give any industry a green light to profit from litter and pollution nor shirk their responsibility for an abysmal recycling rate.

CALIFORNIA BAG BAN RESOURCES

Protect California’s Plastic Bag Ban, Yes on Proposition 67
Californians Against Waste, The Problem Of Plastic Bags & California Against Big Plastic
SurfRider Foundation, Top Ten Reasons to Vote Yes To Uphold California’s Bag Ban
Ballotpedia, Encyclopedia of American Politics, California Plastic Bag Ban Referendum
Media Matters For America, California’s Plastic Bag Ban: Myths And Facts