Santa Monica Bans the Plastic Bag!

Attention Santa Monica Shoppers!

As of Tuesday, January 5th, Santa Monica becomes the eighth city in California to ban the single use plastic bag.  The Santa Monica City Council approved a ban of plastic bags in all retail outlets except for restaurants.  Retailers will still be able to sell paper bags priced at a dime or more.  So if you are going shopping in Santa Monica, plan on bringing your own bag!!  And although banned as well in grocery stores, for health purposes, people will still be able to get the rolled plastic bags used in the meat and produce sections.

This has been a long time coming and I am very happy to see this happen in a city that's part of Los Angeles County.  Two years ago, Santa Monica had considered such a ban but lawsuits from an industry group prevented it from happening.  Wonderul environmenta activist groups such as Heal the Bay, spearheaded the effort to curb widespread use of plastic bags.  This was a victory.

Photo Courtesy of Kate Ter Harr/flikr.

Many of you may ask...why the need for banning plastic bags?

Ever see plastic bags in trees?  On the beach?  In storm drains?  Plastic bags are mobile and they can be found EVERYWHERE in large cities...mainly on the sides of the roads and in storm drain areas.  The average American uses between 300 and 700 plastic bags per year, says Answers.com.  That's Crazy!!!  And we use these once!  Wake up people...stop using plastic bags!  There are so many alternatives now-a-days.  Almost any grocery store sells reusable bags (some which are made from recycled bottles) for about $.99 per bag.

Let's do our part and help reduce useless waste.  This should have passed years ago.  Let's relish in this victory and hope other cities see the benefits and follow in these footsteps!

Photo Courtesy of energy-green.net.

Photo Courtesy of inhabitat.com