Culver City Observer -

Culver To Follow County-Wide Trend

“It’s going to be an anticlimactic discussion,” was Mayor Andrew Weissman’s assessment of the City Council’s reaction to an action item on regulation of plastic bags in Culver City.

And it was somewhat anticlimactic, as the Council agreed unanimously on directing staff to draft an ordinance modeled on the Los Angeles County ordinance—banning use of single-use plastic bags in retail businesses and charging ten cents for each paper bag used.

The unsurprising action at the Council’s meeting Monday night demonstrated how over the last few years environmental activists have raised awareness of the problems and even dangers of using plastic bags.

As several of the speakers in public comment pointed out, plastic bags have been banned in Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Long Beach, Santa Monica, San Jose, and a host of other California cities. Culver City is now preparing to join these cities.

Despite anticipation that the Council, which has been leaning more and more toward environmentally sound policies, would vote for a ban, 37 speakers spoke before the Council. Weissman asked them to be brief and if possible, simply say they agreed with previous speakers (or just say “Ditto”) but many speakers threw in some extra information or some twist to emphasize the need to ban plastic bags.

Colorful actions included a Santa Monica College marine biology professor’s signage (created by one of his students) that said “Plastic Bags are a Drag,” and a woman with bi-colored hair who wielded a large (cloth) bag of trash that she had collected at the beach. As she waved a dirty piece of what may have been a plastic bag at one time, Weissman responded “We get the idea.”

More serious testimony was provided by representatives from Heal the Bay, Environment California, and other environmental organizations. One environmental representative showed photos of the debris that fills large sections of the Ballona Wetlands.

Anna Cummins, who co-founded 5 Gyres Institute, told of her trips to the world’s oceans, each of which contains a “gyre,” a sort of “soup” of plastic particles that are being consumed by fish and entering the food chain. “I have a four-month old baby,” she added “and I know that the pollution that is in my body has been passed on to my child-this pollution is being passed to the next generation.”

While another marine biology expert, Ed Tarvyd of Santa Monica College, warned that plastic bags are not the only polluter and that a ban on single use bags would not address the entire problem, two speakers dissented from support for an outright ban. Steve Rose, representing the Culver City Chamber of Commerce, asked that the Council consider a “comprehensive recycling program” for plastic bags rather than a ban, which the Chamber believes could be harmful economically to businesses. Gary Robinson said the use of cloth bags and other non-plastic or non-paper substitutes was inconvenient, especially as cloth bags did not contain leakage from food products.

Of the Council members, Meghan Sahli-Wells and Jeff Cooper, who constituted the Subcommittee on Sustainability, spoke first. Sahli-Wells, a longtime advocate of banning single-use bags, urged the Council to go for a ban rather than a “double charge tax” (charging for both plastic and paper bags to discourage usage) because that regulation technique lacks consistency and can be legally challenged more easily.

She said she was disappointed that what she termed the “Chamber’s talking points” (the double-charge tax) was mentioned in the city’s staff report. She hastened to add that she respected the Chamber and the importance of local businesses.

Cooper said he had initially not been sure where he stood on the issue but he had talked with many community members, done research, and even talked with his mother, who at age 87, is adjusting to using cloth bags (she lives in San Francisco where there has been a plastic bag ban for some time). He was happy to support a ban here too.

Mehaul O’ Leary spoke of how, as the owner of a local restaurant, this issue will affect him personally. But he noted that he has been using paper rather than plastic bags at Joxer Daly’s for a couple of years now and “I will give you a dollar off your bill if you bring your own bag.” He opined that the anti-ban people were either in denial or “unable to understand” the issue because “the evidence is out there” that plastic bags contribute to pollution.

Jim Clarke said he had participated in some Ballona Wetlands cleanups and had been “appalled” at the pollution he had witnessed.

When it came Mayor Weissman’s turn, he had to just say “Ditto.”

Helen Kerstein of the Department of Public Works said the process of creating the ban will include an environmental review done in tandem with the county EIR (Environmental Impact Report) and a community meeting for outreach.

The Los Angeles County ordinance will be used as the basis for Culver City’s draft and a future meeting will give the Council the opportunity to “tweak” the ordinance as needed.