What nonsense! The population of California is 36.4 million. $375 million divided by 36.4 million is $10.30 per person.
Are we to assume that each household has 20 people?The Supervisors do not state in the article how the $375 million figure is calculated, but it is apparently the entire California litter cleanup budget - not just for plastic bags, but for everything.
Why are they pinning the entire state litter cleanup budget on plastic bags?Plastic bags are a small percentage of litter. Eliminating them won't save the state a penny because other litter will still need to be cleared from the same locations. Cigarette butts, paper cups, bottles, etc. In other words,
the additional cost per person for cleaning up plastic bags is zero.
Plastic bags fly off the back of trash trucks. Whose fault is that? The Supervisors should address that problem directly.
The Supervisors talk about marine life and imported oil used to make plastic bags.
Are large numbers of marine mammals and seabirds killed by plastic bags? No. The
London Times has exposed this as a myth based on a typographical error. The report on which the myth is based referred to discarded nets, not plastic bags.
Are plastic bags made of imported oil? No. They are made of
ethane which is a waste product extracted from domestically produced natural gas. If the ethane is not used to make plastic, it would need to be burned off which would produce greenhouse gases. Plastic bags are a wonderful use of a waste product.
We are puzzled by the Supervisors' over-the-top obsession with plastic bags. County staff has spent thousands of hours on this matter. We believe that the Supervisors have been hijacked by anti-plastic bag activists making spurious and misleading environmental claims.