Statewide Bag Ban Vote coming up!!
Ban The Bag California!
Support Assembly Bill 298 to reduce plastic pollution!
The California State Legislature is considering a bill that would ban plastic checkout bags at supermarkets, retail pharmacies and convenience stores statewide starting in 2014. Assembly Bill 298 would also require those retailers to provide reusable bags for sale and charge a fee for recycled paper bags as an incentive for customers to remember their reusable bags. California could be the first in the nation to pass a statewide plastic bag ban but it won’t happen without your support!
Our California coasts are valuable drivers of a tourism industry worth billions of dollars and thousands of jobs in our state. It is important to have sound policies to keep our beaches clean and maintain healthy ecosystems. In fact, over 50 local jurisdictions in California have already seen the importance of this action and banned plastic bags. Please let your State Senator know you support this legislation and a phasing out of plastic checkout bags statewide!
Bag Bag Update and New RAP Tab on blog!
Last Thursday, the Humboldt Waste Management Authority (HWMA) voted unanimously to start the Initial Study to plan for the bag ban ordinance! Once that is complete, in 60-90 days, the Board will know which direction needs to be taken…a full EIR or a Negative Declaration. Many thanks to everyone that phoned in and left comments to the Board and attended the meeting!
Want more information about Surfrider’s Rise Above Plastics campaign? Check out our updated blog! We added a tab to our site dedicated to one of our most important and active campaigns. Find out more about plastic pollution, what you can do to reduce your plastic footprint, what’s going on with a Humboldt bag ban, check the links to our allies, and get involved.
To share our enthusiasm for RAP, we want you to (re)watch Tim Minchin’s call for action! Hysterical and poignant, all wrapped up in one epic song.
Great Turnout for Mad River Beach Clean-up!
Thanks to all the volunteers who rallied on Saturday out to Surfriders Mad River beach clean-up. Volunteers raked through several left over beach fires and collected thousands of nails with magnets. We even found piles of burnt plastic and furniture..yikes! By the end of the clean-up the beach was in much better shape! Thanks again!
The thousands of nails found from beach fires are left over from people burning wood pallets. Burnt pallets leave a mess of nails making it unsafe to walk on the beach.
If you missed out on this months clean-up take note that Surfrider has a clean-up on the second saturday of each month. Next month is our adopt-a-highway clean-up on January 14. We meet North of Trinidad off HWY 101 on Seawood Drive road exit. We always provide supplies!
Day Without A Bag!
Surfrider Humboldt and Humboldt Baykeeper are partnering to bring you Day Without (a disposable) Bag on 15 December at Wildberries, Ray’s Arcata, Ray’s McKinleyville, and Eureka Natural Foods. Day Without a Bag was started by Heal the Bay with the goal of reducing the use of environmentally harmful single-use plastic bags by empowering individuals to take simple and direct actions to eliminate the use of disposable shopping bags. Surfrider Humboldt and Humboldt Baykeeper will be encouraging shoppers to stop by our information booths and to bring in a t-shirt that we will make into a reusable bag. Your new bag will then get screen printed with our Ban the Bag Humboldt logo. A single reusable bag has the potential to replace over 1,000 single-use bags in its lifetime, saving a significant amount of resources. We hope this one day of action will encourage people to go plastic free during the holiday shopping season and throughout 2012.
You can help our effort in several ways:
- Volunteer for the event
- Volunteer for our pre-Day Without a Bag work party
- Help provide or loan needed supplies for the event
- Plywood to make into Ban the Bag boards
- Blue and white paint and supplies
- Extension cords
- Heat guns to dry screen print
- Donate T-shirts
Please contact mjhumboldtsurfrider@yahoo.com for more information or to volunteer.
What will we do without free plastic bags?!
Here’s some decidedly entertaining ideas:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiThSyPHKAo]
The Bag Getting Banned
Congratulations to Marin County and Santa Monica for passing single-use plastic bag bans!
And more good news: a bill has been introduced into the Oregon State Legislature to bag these pesky bags, that are disposable but not biodegradable.
Join the crusade and help Surfrider with our efforts to push for a local plastic bag ban!
Ocean Night this Thursday
This month’s show features Morning of The Earth and Addicted To Plastic Thursday, January 6, at the Arcata Theatre Lounge, 1036 G St in Arcata.
Doors opens at 6:30 p.m., movies start at 7 p.m., cost is $3 donation and free for Ocean Conservancy, Humboldt Surfrider and Humboldt Baykeeper members and is all ages.
Addicted to Plastic
From styrofoam cups to artificial organs, plastics are perhaps the most ubiquitous and versatile material ever invented. No invention in the past 100 years has had more influence and presence than synthetics. But such progress has had a cost. For better and for worse, no ecosystem or segment of human activity has escaped the shrink-wrapped grasp of plastic. Addicted To Plastic is a global journey to investigate what we really know about the material of a thousand uses and why there’s so darn much of it.
On the way we discover a toxic legacy, and the men and women dedicated to cleaning it up. Addicted To Plastic is a point-of-view style documentary that encompasses three years of filming in 12 countries on 5 continents, including two trips to the middle of the Pacific Ocean where plastic debris accumulates. The film details plastic’s path over the last 100 years and provides a wealth of expert interviews on practical and cutting edge solutions to recycling, toxicity and biodegradability. These solutions – which include plastic made from plants – will provide viewers with a new perspective about our future with plastic
Morning of the Earth
Morning of the Earth (1971) is a classic surf film by Alby Falzon and David Elfick. The film’s soundtrack was produced by G. Wayne Thomas and included music and songs by noted Australian music acts Tamam Shud, John J. Francis, Brian Cadd and G. Wayne Thomas. The record became the first Australian Gold soundtrack album.
The film portrays surfers living in spiritual harmony with nature, making their own boards (and homes) as they travelled in search of the perfect wave across Australia’s north-east coast, Bali and Hawaii.
Concentrating on the surfers themselves, Alby Falzon travelled to their farms along the coastline, capturing aspects of their daily life, the harmony with nature that extends from those moments when they are riding the waves to the way they order their life on land.
Arcata Makes A Motion to Ban Plastic Bags!
Great movement in Arcata!
Last night at the Arcata City Council meeting a motion was made to affirm support for the concept of a local plastic bag ban and the city staff was directed to work with Humboldt Waste Management Authority (HWMA) to develop an ordinance and EIR. If HWMA is not timely enough (meaning in the first few months of next year), Arcata wants to take the issue up again and move forward on their own.
Here is an article in today’s Times-Standard about last night’s meeting.
Some quotes and comments from last night:
Councilmember Shane Brinton: “I see this as an opportunity for Arcata to be a regional leader in a way that we are known to be and that we should continue to be.”
More Details
“Plastic State Of Mind”
TONIGHT! Come to the Arcata City Council meeting to support a local single-use plastic bag ban! The Council will be discussion the current state of their consideration. The meeting starts at 6:00 p.m. and because there is not much on the agenda, we recommend coming at the beginning.
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Along the same lines, check out this new video! This is a great contribution to the cause of reducing our disposable plastic footprint.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koETnR0NgLY&fs=1&hl=en_US]
Los Angeles County Bans Plastic Bags
Tuesday, November 16, 2010 – Added 1 hour ago
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County has voted to ban stores from using single-use plastic bags.
County supervisors approved the measure Tuesday in hopes of preventing billions of bags from polluting neighborhoods and waterways.
The ordinance bans stores from giving customers single-use plastic bags and would require them to charge 10 cents for each paper bag beginning next year.
Supporters clapped and cheered the decision. Opponents, however, say they are concerned that jobs will be lost and residents in poorer neighborhoods will struggle with fees for paper and reusable bags.