TITLE
Recommendation to respectfully request City Council support AB 1998 (Brownley - Single Use Carry Out Bags) and that our support be communicated to appropriate State and County officials;
Request City Attorney and City Manager review Los Angeles County’s Draft Environmental Impact Report entitled “Ordinances to Ban Plastic Carryout Bags in Los Angeles County” and its applicability to the City of Long Beach and report back within 30 days; and
Request City Attorney and City Manager provide recommendations to City Council for submitting comments in response to the Draft EIR to the County of Los Angeles by its deadline of July 16, 2010.
DISCUSSION
Each year, approximately 6 billion plastic carryout bags are used in Los Angeles County. These disposable bags cost cities in the county up to 17 cents per bag for disposal. At the state level, according to Don’t Trash California, state and local governments spend approximately $375 million every year to clean up and landfill discarded plastic bags. In United States, less than 5 percent of plastic bags are recycled. With over 380 billion bags being thrown away every year, Americans end up wasting millions of barrels of oil or other fossil fuels, which are used in the production of single-use bags.
In addition, plastic bags create significant litter problems for our communities and damage our marine environment. According to numerous studies, countless marine animals, including whales, turtles, birds and other wildlife, are killed or injured through ingestion of and entanglement in marine debris, which include an increasing number of plastic bags.
As for paper bags, County reports state, that although “paper carryout bags have a higher recycling rate (21 percent nationally), the production, distribution, and disposal of paper carryout bags also have known adverse effects on the environment. There is a considerable amount of energy that is used, trees that are felled, and pollution that is generated in the p...
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