Trash, much of it plastic, in the Los Angeles River. Photo: Heal the Bay.
An objective of HtB's marine debris legislation is to reduce the pollution from single-use plastic and paper bags. AB 2058 is a step in this direction.
Sea lion pup ingesting a plastic bag. Every year, over one million sea birds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die due to marine debris (86% of which is plastic) worldwide. Image: Whale Rescue Team
Turtle caught in fishing net, a victim of derelict fishing gear. Image: California Coastal Commission.

Both bills now move to their respective fiscal committees and then, if passed, to the California Senate and Assembly floors for a full vote later this summer.

AB 2058 — Single-Use Bag Reduction

On June 23rd, 2008, AB 2058 (Levine-Brownley-Davis) passed the Senate Environmental Quality Committee with a vote of 5 to 2.  If signed into law, this bill would require large grocery chains and pharmacies statewide to charge a 25 cent fee on single-use plastic and paper bags if a 70% reduction in plastic bag usage is not achieved by the end of 2010.

Similar policies in other countries have been very successful. There has been a 90% reduction in plastic carryout bag distribution in Ireland since it adopted a fee in 2002.

The bill also seeks to reduce consumer usage of paper carryout bags and drive the use of the most sustainable alternative, reusable bags.

Originally, the bill applied the 25-cent fee equally to both plastic and paper carryout bags as a way to drive consumers toward the most sustainable alternative, reusable bags. Unfortunately, to get AB 2058 out of committee, the paper bag fee provision was temporarily taken out of the bill at the request of the Committee Chair until more information is provided about the paper bag issue. Heal the Bay is working closely with the authors and the interested parties involved to resolve this issue and we are confident that an agreement regarding paper bags can be reached.

Note: AB 2058 was passed previously by the Assembly Natural Resources committee instead of a more aggressive AB 2829 (Davis). AB 2058 has taken on elements of AB 2829, adding Assembly Members Davis and Brownley as co-authors.

Single-use bags, especially plastic bags, wreak havoc in the marine environment and cause extreme environmental blight. Each year local governments spend millions of dollars to clean-up litter such as plastic bags and to landfill this waste.

AB 899 — Derelict Fishing Gear

On June 24th, SB 899 (Simitian) passed out of the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee with bipartisan support with a vote of 10-2.

SB 899 seeks to implement one of the recommendations adopted by the February 2007 California Ocean Protection Council Resolution calling for target reductions of “derelict fishing gear”. Derelict fishing gear is lost and abandoned gear has been found to drift thousands of miles at sea and continues to trap and kill marine life.

If signed into law, SB 899 would establish a statewide program for derelict fishing gear reporting and removal along the coast of California. This bill would require anyone losing commercial fishing gear to report the loss within 48 hours via a toll-free hotline. In addition, a database of known derelict fishing gear would be maintained noting the location and type of gear lost. The bill would also require traps and trawl nets to be tagged or coded with the owner’s identification number to assist in the identification and recovery of derelict fishing gear.

California is the only state on the Pacific coast that has yet to take action on this issue. Washington, Alaska, Oregon and Hawaii have all have derelict fishing gear removal programs. SB 899 is receiving widespread support from environmental groups and the commercial fishing community.

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