Friday, May 28, 2010

Fight plastic pollution by supporting AB 1998!

Heal the Bay is sponsoring legislation this year that would significantly reduce plastic bag litter in our communities, on our beaches and in our oceans. With your help, California could be the first state in the country to adopt an aggressive policy to ban plastic carryout bags an large grocery stores, pharmacies and conveniences stores. Your immediate support is needed in helping to pass Assembly Bill 1998. Plastic pollution costs California taxpayers millions of dollars to clean-up, blights communities and threatens wildlife.

Your voice can make an incredible impact. Please help Heal the Bay by making a quick phone call to your District’s Assemblymember with the following message: “I am a member of your district and urge you to support AB 1998, the plastic bag ban bill.”

To find your Assemblymember, click here on the following link and enter your 5 digit zip code: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html

The 2 minutes you take to call could help protect our environment for generations to come!

You can also send a letter to Assemblymember Brownley expressing your support for AB 1998 by clicking here:
http://www.healthebay.org/actionalerts/ab1998/sendletter.asp

San Francisco, Malibu, Fairfax, and Palo Alto have banned plastic bags and at least 20 more cities in California are considering bans. AB 1998 will create one uniform policy for addressing all types of single-use bags to encourage consumers to use reusable bags, the most sustainable alternative.

If passed, AB 1998 would:

Ban single-use plastic bags at supermarkets, convenience stores and large retail establishments with pharmacies. The ban would not apply to bags used to carry bulk items, produce or raw meat to the checkout.
Limit the distribution of paper bags at these stores to encourage consumers to use reusable bags.
Require reusable bags to be available for purchase at these stores instead of using single-use carryout bags.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

A short video of the facts of Plastic in the Ocean

When I talk about plastic trash in the ocean, the most common questions that I receive is "How does it get to the ocean?" I understand that people have a hard time to imagine that 75 to 80 % of plastic trash in the ocean is originated from the land instead of from the ships on the sea.
But when you watch this video, you can see that your everyday plastic trash is floating towards the ocean through the rivers. Los Angeles river that flows into the Long Beach Port is only 51 miles long. However, there are numerous creeks and storm drains are feeding into the river. If you see a plastic cup on the street in front of your house today, the chances of finding the same cup somewhere in the LA river in the future are extremely high.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W1LMH7HGvs

Friday, May 7, 2010

Synthetics Sea - Plastic in the Ocean

I posted this last year. But this is a brand new version with more updated information.
Since the first version was made in 2001, many people started to realize the huge problem of plastic pollution in the oceans. So, things must have been improved, right? Surprisingly, the answer is NO. The situation got a lot worse. I mean, "A Lot".

It would take only 10 minutes of your time to find out what is really going on.