Earth Protect Blog

Heal the Bay is sponsoring new legislation this year to reduce plastic bag litter on our beaches and oceans.
AB 1998 has passed out of the Assembly and is heading to the Senate! With your help (send a letter), California could be the first state in the country to adopt a landmark policy to plastic bag pollution.

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.

Send a letter today to Senator Darrell Steinberg expressing your support for AB 1998. Your letter will be e-mailed to Heal the Bay where we will print and hand-deliver deliver your message for maximum impact.

Learn More

• Plastic Bags
  Current Issues section - this web site
• AB 1998 – Fact Sheet
  PDF: 296kb
• AB 1998 – FAQs
  PDF: 193kb
• “The True Cost of Single-Use Bags” – Fact Sheet
  PDF :239kb
• Paper or plastic - better yet, neither
  L.A.Times: 12/14/07 Heal the Bay's Op Ed