The Surfrider Foundation and local San Diego political leaders held a press conference in Ocean Beach on Saturday, Jan. 4, and pushed for a plastics-free California. A beach cleanup followed the presser.
Assemblymembers Lorena Gonzalez and Todd Gloria – who is running for mayor – and County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher joined San Diego’s Surfrider is this renewed battle against single-use plastics. And they pushed for support of a new law that, if passed, would require plastic manufacturers in California to drastically reduce production over the next decade.
The new bill, Senate Bill 54 along with the parallel Assembly Bill 1080, known as the “California Circular Economy and Pollution Reduction Act,” aims for a statewide 75% reduction of waste generated from single-use packaging by 2030.
There are reports that an estimated 17.6 billion pounds of plastic enter the ocean every year, the equivalent of a plastic-filled garbage truck every minute. According to sources compiled in the bill, 670 billion pounds of plastic are produced globally every year with that number expected to triple over the next 40 years if drastic steps aren’t taken.
And according to the Surfrider Foundation and the environmental group Oceana – 4 out of 5 items picked up during their beach cleanups last year were plastic.
“We’re on the verge of doing something huge in California and joining the European Nations and actually taking plastics seriously,” Gonzalez said. News source: 7SanDiego
For more info, go to Surfrider Foundation.
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