5 Gyres - Understanding Plastic Pollution Through Exploration, Education, and Action

So, it's true bag bans are the most effective means of reducing plastic bag pollution in the environment. How do we know? Look at the photos above taken 8 months apart after the Maui bag ban. The best way to eliminate plastic pollution is to eliminate the unnecessary plastic that causes it. 

And we're tickled pink here at 5G HQ because the dominoes are falling, rapidly. Sure, it's tough to beat an industry's interest whose representing council has a 124 million bucks to blow annually on protecting their bottom lines, but more and more, people are waking up to the fact that if you don't do anything about plastic getting into the environment, it's only going to get worse.  

Strategically, municipal bag bans with slightly different policies are the best way to pave the way for an eventual state and then federal ban.  Recyclers (with the exception of the highly vocal Hilex Poly) don't want plastic bags and grocery stores could care less if they gave them out or not, that's a fact. But what the grocers don't want is a patchwork of policies that messes with their supply chain logistics. But the only way to to get them onboard for a state initiative that will give them just that is to force their hand by enacting a patchwork of policies so that they demand statewide action.  

So, my people, it's time.  If you've been planning to start a Ban The Bag campaign, there is no time like the present.  Help the dominoes fall.  And we can help.  Cheers to Laguna Beach for unanimously voting Tuesday to draft and ordinance to ban the bag in Laguna.  As Chad Nelson, Laguna native and policy director for Surfrider Foundation National said, though plastic bags are cheap to produce, 2-3 cents per each, the taxpayer is paying 17 cents per bag to cleanup or dispose of.  As he says, "We're paying that difference threefold at least publicly." 

Why are we paying to dispose of someone else's garbage?  Start your campaign today.