Why It Is Essential For Culver City To Ban Single-Use Plastic Bags

Andy Shrader

To see why Culver City and the greater Southern California community must actively address the growing problem of ocean debris, you need venture no further than what I call the Playa Vista Garbage Patch.

To arrive at the garbage patch, wait until a rainy day, climb aboard your bicycle, (skateboard, wagon, or tennis shoes), direct it to the Ballona Creek bike path and head west, toward the ocean. On your left, after you pass the architectural and environmental blight that is the Playa Vista development itself [living, vibrant wetlands are also important ingredients in healthy oceans] just beyond the Lincoln Boulevard bridge, you will find the reason (shown in the picture above).

If that does not convince you we have a problem, keep going until you hit the beach. There you will find another reason.

In April 2009, the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Marine Resources Working Group published the attached paper entitled, “Understanding the Economic Benefits and Costs of Controlling Marine Debris in the APEC Region,” which states on pg. vii that “In 2008, marine debris was estimated to have directly cost the 21 APEC member economies approximately US$ 1.265 billion” and that “6.4 million tonnes of debris reach the world’s oceans each year, and that around eight million items enter the sea every day. Plastics consistently comprise 60 to 80% of total debris recorded. Levels and rates of debris input are increasing despite measures to control the problem.” The paper also states that “Marine debris is an avoidable cost.” If we want to cut city and state budgets, why not begin here instead of, among other things, laying off teachers?

As of October 31st, according to the United Nations, there are 7 billion people on the planet. We are apparently expecting 9 – 10 billion by 2050. What this means is that every habit we human beings adopt is having a larger and larger impact on the planet. If the Los Angeles County Staff Report “An Overview of Carryout Bags in Los Angeles County,” dated August 2007 is correct and the average consumer uses 500-600 plastic bags per year, then Culver City’s 38,883 residents can use up to approximately 19 million plastic bags. Studies referred to on Heal the Bay’s website suggest that only 5% of those are ever recycled and that the rest end up in landfills or on our streets, where they cost our California cities millions to clean up out of storm drains and out of impaired waterways. Culver City’s location along the banks of Ballona Creek, one of two major watersheds in Los Angeles, gives the city an important responsibility as a caretaker of the creek, of Santa Monica Bay, and of the Pacific Ocean beyond.

There have been many apocalyptic films coming out of Hollywood lately, suggesting the world will end in fire, in ice, or by collision with another planet. This report from the International Programme on the State of the Oceans – a panel of ocean scientists who met at Oxford University last summer to compare notes – suggests that it may not be so dramatic. They found that our oceans are in “shocking” decline and they warn that ocean life is “at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.” These people are not Jerry Bruckheimer; they are world-class scientists. Since 70% of the oxygen in our atmosphere is generated by ocean-dwelling organisms, you can do the math as to what it is we face. Banning plastic bags is not only about saving the fish, it’s about saving the humans. And we need to be doing much, much more.

On the personal level, most people don't realize that they currently pay at least twice for plastic bags. The first cost they pay, according to the L.A. County Staff report, is $18 per year to use plastic bags, a cost that is embedded by the stores in the cost of their groceries. The second cost people pay is included in their taxes to help clean up plastic bag blight from neighborhoods and storm drains, which is estimated to total $25 million dollars in Southern California, $25 million dollars which could be much better spent on our schools, on job-creation programs, etc. Reusable bags, by comparison, are available at a one-time cost, some for less than $1 each. Even six to ten bags, for larger families, will still cost far less than $18.

Representatives of the plastics industry would likely dispute all of the above, of course, so I present it to you as my opinion. SavethePlasticBag.com disputes plastic bags having an affect on turtles, for one example, saying: “We have been unable to find another photograph of a turtle eating a plastic bag anywhere on the Internet.” Don’t take my word for any of this. I encourage you to walk along Ballona Creek to the beach yourself. Take a ferry ride out to Catalina Island, as I did last month. You will likely see what I saw, balloons, soccer balls, and, yes, plastic bags, floating in the ocean, lurking there in the waves, waiting to choke the life out of something.

Culver City’s proposed ban on single-use plastic bags may be a small drop in a giant ocean of problems that seem insurmountable and overwhelming, but it is a step we can take at a local level. Every time I use my reusable canvas bags I feel good that I’m doing my small part to ensure that my grandchildren’s grandchildren will have a healthy planet to live on. It’s not much, but it’s something.

Andy Shrader is a Marine Debris Activist.