7 Ways California's Plastic Bag Ban Is Great News for Planet Earth

The new law will cut greenhouse gas emissions and save the Golden State hundreds of millions of dollars.

October 01, 2014 Kristina Bravo

Savings

“Bags cost us money,” Toby Truitt, store director of San Diego–based Major Market, told *U-T San Diego*. “They are an expense. If we don’t have to pay for bags, we will save money, and can hopefully pass that along to customers.” The bag ban is expected to save businesses more than $265 million a year, according to a study by the nonprofit Californians Against Waste.

(Photo: John Catbagan/Flickr)

Climate Change

Besides reducing ocean pollution, the bag ban also helps the battle against climate change. Eliminating single-use plastic bags will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 175,000 tons annually, according to an analysis by Californians Against Waste.

(Photo: Oxfam International/Flickr)

Cutting Back

*U-T San Diego* reported that California this year is projected to cut its plastic bag use by more than half—from 30 billion bags to 14 billion—compared with 2006. That’s even before the statewide ban takes effect on July 1, 2015.

(Photo: MTSOfan/flickr)

Toxic Diet

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, nearly 300 species, including Hawaiian monk seals and loggerheads, consume or get trapped in ocean plastic debris annually.

(Photo: Paul Sutherland/Getty Images)

Cleaning Up

Nearly 650,000 volunteers picked up trash in more than 90 countries around the world during Ocean Conservancy’s 2013 International Coastal Cleanup. Among the cigarette butts, food wrappers, plastic bottles, bottle caps, and straws were 441,493 plastic bags.

(Photo: Jake Glass/Flickr)

Sea Turtles

According to a 2013 report produced by the University of Queensland in Australia, sea turtles are swallowing twice as much plastic debris as they did 25 years ago. A large portion of it comes from plastic bags, which can look like jellyfish. “Our research revealed that young ocean-going turtles were more likely to eat plastic than their older, coastal-dwelling relatives,” researcher Qamar Schuyler said in a statement.

(Photo: Big Good Bye/Flickr)

The Price Tag

In June, the United Nations Environment Program put a price tag on ocean plastic pollution: $13 billion. Damage includes the death of sea creatures when they ingest or get entangled in plastic, economic losses suffered by fishing and tourism industries, and the proliferation of invasive species that spread through plastic debris. "Plastics have come to play a crucial role in modern life, but the environmental impacts of the way we use them cannot be ignored," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said in a statement.

(Photo: Paul Kennedy/Getty Images)

7 Ways California's Plastic Bag Ban Is Great News for Planet Earth — New Habits of the Polar Bear: How Climate Change Changes Behaviors

The image of a snowy-coated polar bear stranded on an island of ice has become an indelible symbol of climate change—for good reason. The bears, with a range limited to mostly inside the Arctic Circle, are on the front lines of one of Earth’s most fragile ecosystems.

Rising temperatures in the Arctic—they’re accelerating at twice the speed of the rest of the planet—are leaving less of the ice the bears depend on for hunting and foraging.

Between 1987 and 2004, the Western Hudson Bay population of polar bears declined by 22 percent. Why? A study in 2007 linked the decline to the sea ice breaking up earlier each spring, which shortens the time bears have to hunt on the ice.

The shift to warmer weather is altering the bears’ behavior. Their struggle to adapt as quickly as their world is changing around them has made polar bears one of the species most vulnerable to a warming climate.

*— Taylor Hill*

In California, the days of ocean-polluting, wildlife-killing plastic bags are over.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed into law a bill that makes the Golden State the first in the nation to enact a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags. (Citywide bans are already in effect in San Francisco; Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Portland, Ore.; and other municipalities.)

Beginning July 1, 2015, the bill will require retailers to provide alternatives such as recycled paper bags for at least a dime a pop.

“The bill is a step in the right direction—it reduces the torrent of plastic polluting our beaches, parks, and even the vast ocean itself,” Brown said in a statement. “We’re the first to ban these bags, and we won’t be the last.”

Here, in numbers, is how the ban will affect California, wildlife, and the environment.

—Kristina Bravo

Enter Photo Gallery

Savings

Climate Change

Cutting Back

Toxic Diet

Cleaning Up

Sea Turtles

The Price Tag

New Habits of the Polar Bear: How Climate Change Changes Behaviors