Millions Of 'Shade Balls' Protect LA's Water During Drought

Millions Of 'Shade Balls' Protect LA's Water During Drought
By deflecting UV rays, the opaque spheres are expected to protect more than 300 million gallons of water from evaporating in Southern California's harsh sunlight every year.Video: NowThis

Posted by The Huffington Post on Wednesday, August 12, 2015

The sea of 96 MILLION plastic balls that LA hopes will save it from drought:

Reservoir is covered in an ocean of black spheres to stop 300million gallons of water evaporating

• Black plastic balls were this week released into the 175-acre Los Angeles Reservoir in Sylmar, California

• They are designed to cover the water, prevent evaporation and protect it from dust, rain, chemicals and wildlife

• The polyethylene balls, around the size of an apple, cost 36 cents each and are black to help deflect the UV rays

PUBLISHED in the Dailymail: 11 August 2015 By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

With no apparent relief to California's record-breaking drought, Los Angeles has turned to more unusual methods to protect the city's water.

Officials recently released 96 million floating 'shade balls' into the 75-acre Los Angeles Reservoir in Sylmar, California.

The black plastic balls are designed to help protect the water against dust, rain, chemicals and wildlife, as well as prevent 300 million gallons of water from evaporating each year. 

Scroll down for video 

With no apparent relief to California's record-breaking drought, Los Angeles has turned to more unusual methods to protect the city's water. City officials recently released ninety six million floating 'shade balls' into the Los Angeles Reservoir to cover the complex' water

HOW DO THE SHADE BALLS WORK? 

The plastic black balls, around the size of an apple, cost 36 cents each.

They floating on the surface and block the sun's rays to prevent water from evaporating.

By doing this, they prevent the chemical reaction that creates the carcinogenic compound bromate.

The balls also form a protective barrier across the surface that helps keep birds, animals and other contaminants out away. 

The balls work by floating on the surface and blocking the sun's rays.

As well as protecting against evaporation, they also prevent the chemical reaction that creates the carcinogenic compound bromate.

For most people, exposure to bromate - created from naturally-occurring bromide in water -is unlikely to be cause problems.

But some people who ingest large amounts of bromate have suffered nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain.

The balls also form a protective barrier across the surface that helps keep birds, animals and other contaminants out.

Dr Brian White, a now-retired Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP biologist), was the first person to think of using shade balls for water quality.

The idea came to him when he learned about the application of 'bird balls' in ponds along airfield runways.

His in-house solution has been used in LADWP's open-air reservoirs since 2008 to block sunlight, prevent chemical reactions and curtail algae blooms.

The balls, around the size of a large apple, cost 36 cents each and are black because it is the only colour that is able to deflect UV rays. 

Around 20,000 polyethylene balls were released into the Los Angeles reservoir at the Van Norman complex in Sylmar, California, yesterday

They balls work by floating on the surface and blocking the sun rays to prevent the water from evaporating. By doing this, they also prevent the chemical reaction that creates the carcinogenic compound bromate. 

They are currently in place at Upper Stone, Elysian and Ivanhoe reservoirs, and come with the added benefit of reducing evaporation off the reservoir surfaces by 85 to 90 per cent.

Mayor Eric Garcetti joined officials yesterday to release the final 20,000 shade balls as part of the region's $34.5 million water quality protection project.

'In the midst of California's historic drought, it takes bold ingenuity to maximize my goals for water conservation,' Garcetti said.

'This effort by LADWP is emblematic of the kind of the creative thinking we need to meet those challenges.'

The polyethylene balls are expected to save $250 million when compared to other, similar techniques to protect the water.

These include splitting the reservoir into two with a bisecting dam; and installing two floating covers that would have cost more than $300 million.

'In addition to cutting back on the need to chemically treat our water to prevent natural occurrences like algae, these shade balls are a cost-effective way to reduce evaporation each year by nearly 300 million gallons, enough to provide drinking water for 8,100 people for a full year,' added Councilman Mitch Englander.

The balls are made of polythene and cost 36 cents each. They are black because it is the only colour that is able to deflect UV rays

Dr Brian White, a now-retired LADWP biologist, was the first person to think of using shade balls for water quality.  The idea came to him when he learned about the application of 'bird balls' in ponds along airfield runways.

Mayor Eric Garcetti (right) joined officials yesterday to release the final 20,000 shade balls as part of the region's $34.5 million water quality protection project. 'In the midst of California's historic drought, it takes bold ingenuity to maximize my goals for water conservation,' Garcetti said. 'This effort by LADWP is emblematic of the kind of the creative thinking we need to meet those challenges'

Pictured is an aerial view of the reservoir showing the shade balls in position. The polyethylene balls are expected to save $250 million when compared to other, similar techniques to protect the water

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3194098/Could-plastic-balls-bring-relief-drought-stricken-California-Los-Angeles-releases-96-million-spheres-protect-reservoir-water.html#ixzz3jxg8hNF7 
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Kids at Beach Cry 'Clean Me Up!'

Published in the Huffington Post by Lisa Kaas Boyle 05/27/2014
 
From the San Fernando Valley Sun:

Nearly 4,000 Los Angeles kids, teachers and volunteers send a giant text message from the ocean to "CLEAN ME UP :)" as part of the 21st annual Kids Ocean Day Adopt-A-Beach Clean-Up organized by the Malibu Foundation, City of Los Angeles, Spectral Q, Keep LA Beautiful and the California Coastal Commission in Los Angeles May 15, 2014. The kids are alerting the world about the need to help the ocean and protect it from the everyday trash and plastic litter that flow down the streets, killing marine life and polluting food resources. Photo Credit: Jeff Pantukhoff, Spectral Q, Kids Ocean Day

How often do you hear kids calling out "CLEAN ME UP!" but that is exactly what 4,000 kids did at Dockweiler Beach on a 100 degree day at the beach for Kids Ocean Day in Los Angeles. Despite the record temperatures, Michael Klubock, founder of The Malibu Foundation, and Aerial Artist John Quigley and a team of volunteers worked successfully with 4,000 school children from 33 Los Angeles schools to send out a message in the sand to all grown-ups, especially legislators and other decision makers, that our oceans are in trouble and need help.

The Malibu Foundation provides in school and on-the-beach education to school children about our precious oceanic resources and our responsibility to keep the oceans free from pollution: especially chemicals and plastic pollution that reach our oceans through storm water and rivers that all lead to the ocean with a toxic mix of man-made waste.

The 4,000 children cleaned the beach of trash: most of it is plastic and not biodegradable, trash that stays around forever and causes significant harm and death to sea creatures when it enters their ecosystem. Also, the plastic trash and chemicals that enter the ocean become part of the food chain, poisoning the sea life that we consume. Research has shown that small broken bits of plastic and plastic microbeads are consumed by fish we eat.

Luckily, there are legislators in California who hear the message from the children and have authored bills currently up for action in the California Legislature to help Clean Up the Ocean from plastic pollution, the number one type of trash polluting our seas. Senators Padilla, DeLeon, and Lara have a State Wide Plastic Bag Ban (SB 270) that has garnered support from a wide range of groups seeking to keep the plastic bag, the number one plastic pollutant out of our environment.

California already has 76 local Bag Ban Ordinances in effect, covering 105 jurisdictions in California. Hawaii has banned plastic bags on each of its islands. Please add your voice to the call for California's state wide legislation to ban plastic bags Here.

Also, Assembly Member Richard Bloom has authored AB 1699, a Plastic Microbeads Ban sponsored by 5 Gyres Institute that seeks to rid personal grooming products of plastic microbead exfoliants that wash straight down the drain and into the ocean, bypassing filtration at water treatment plants because of their small size.

These microbeads resemble fish eggs and are consumed by fish that we humans consume. The plastic microbeads are found in facial and body scrubs and even toothpastes. Natural alternatives like rice bran or apricot husks are not only biodegradable and nontoxic, but also work better because the perfectly spherical surfaces of plastic beads are not good exfoliants, simply sliding over the skin's surface before washing down the drain. The bill has been approved by the California Assembly and now moves to the California Senate for a vote. Please encourage the California Senate to pass the Ban on Plastic Microbeads Here.

Kids Ocean Day, sponsored by The California Coastal Commission, was celebrated at 5 other beaches along the California Coast with over 8,500 children participating in the program statewide.

"The students and teachers who participate in this program are leading the way to a more sustainable world, says Steve Kinsey, Chair of the California Coastal Commission.

 "They are coastal stewards, caring for the beach and raising awareness. I hope the people who see their aerial art design in the sand will be inspired by their example and heed their message: that our lives depend upon each of us doing our part to help take care of the ocean."

Steve Kinsey told the crowd assembled that we are tantalizingly close to having a state wide plastic bag ban and asked the kids "How many of you and your families bring your own bags to the market?" A sea of hands went up.

More:

California Plastic Microbeads California Coastal Commission Assemblyman Richard Bloom Malibu Foundation Kids Ocean Day Plastic Pollution Michael Kluboch Plastic Bags Senator Kevin DeLeon Dockweiler Beach John Quigley

Microbeads a major problem in L.A. River

The tiny plastic beads, common in personal care products and not biodegradable, are an emerging concern among scientists and environmentalists.

Published January 25, 2014 By Louis Sahagun in the L.A. Times

Scientist Marcus Eriksen stood ankle deep in the murky Los Angeles River on Friday and dipped a net into the water, looking for a problem.

Eriksen was searching for "microbeads," bits of plastic no bigger than salt grains that absorb toxins such as motor oil and insecticides as they tumble downstream and into the Pacific Ocean.

The tiny polyethylene and polypropylene beads are an emerging concern among scientists and environmentalists. The beads come mostly from personal care products such as facial exfoliants and body washes. They are not biodegradable, however, and because they are not removed easily by wastewater treatment plants, they flow out to sea and enter the food chain.

"Microplastic is now a ubiquitous contaminant in the Pacific Ocean — and seas around the world," said Eriksen, a scientist with the 5 Gyres Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to researching plastics in the world's waterways. "We believe that 80% of it comes from coastal watersheds like Los Angeles."

Eriksen is just starting to test the Los Angeles River to determine if it holds microbeads, and if so, their source. On Friday, he found what he was looking for in about 10 minutes.

Near the confluence of the river and Arroyo Seco, about three miles north of downtown, Eriksen found a handful of algae and wriggling leeches speckled with tiny filaments, shards and beads that could have come from myriad sources: laundry wastewater, degraded plastic bags, stir sticks, personal care products.

"The scary thing is that the beads sponge up toxins, then get consumed by organisms from shellfish to crabs to fish" later eaten by humans, he said.

Scientists are only beginning to understand the hazards posed by microplastic pollution in the world's oceans and inland waterways. In 2012, Eriksen and a team of researchers discovered large amounts of microbeads and other microplastic pollution in the Great Lakes.

Those findings prompted a coalition of mayors of Great Lakes cities to ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to determine the possible health risks to lake ecosystems and humans.

A year later, 5 Gyres launched a campaign asking the manufacturers of personal care products to remove plastic microbeads and replace them with nonplastic alternatives such as crushed walnut husks and apricot kernels that will degrade naturally. Several companies have agreed to phase microbeads out of their product lines.

In a statement, the Johnson & Johnson Family of Consumer Companies, for example, said it has "stopped developing new products containing polyethylene microbeads."

The company expects by 2015 to have replaced microbeads with alternatives in half the products that currently use them.

That's not soon enough for 5 Gyres, which is circulating a petition titled, "Get plastic off my face and out of my water now!"

Standing in the river, Eriksen demonstrated the problem. He squeezed several drops of Johnson & Johnson's Clean and Clear facial scrub into a small jar full of water, then shook it up and filtered the foamy mixture through a black T-shirt.

Left behind on the fabric were hundreds of tiny white, pink and blue plastic beads. "We estimate there are about 330,000 microbeads per tube," he said.

The source of beads washing down the L.A. River isn't known yet. In rainy weather, the river holds vast amounts of runoff from across the region. But in the current drought, 80% of the flow comes from the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, which sits 12 miles upstream from Eriksen's survey site and treats sewage from the homes of 800,000 San Fernando Valley residents. The other 20% is from myriad sources in the area.

Jimmy Tokeshi, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Department of Public Works, suggested it's not coming from the plant, which sends sewage through a series of holding tanks, digesters, filters and sanitizers before discharging the treated water into the river at a rate up to 27 million gallons a day.

"The city of L.A. meets and/or exceeds all Clean Water Act requirements as well as all local, county and state water regulations," Tokeshi said. Using cloth filters, "We capture microplastics that are larger in size than 10 microns, or 0.01 millimeters, in the water reclamation plant," he said.

Most of the visible plastic debris Eriksen found was much larger than 10 microns in size.

Eriksen said he doesn't yet know the origin of the beads. But he said his nets don't lie.

"Using a net only 2 feet wide for 10 minutes in a stream a few hundred feet across, I caught dozens of bits of plastic," he said. "So, it's easy to extrapolate that millions of plastic particles flow through this channel every day."

He pivoted to face downstream, and with a wave of his muddy hands, he declared: "That's a problem."

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-0126-microbeads-20140126,0,7492777.story#ixzz2tEhZyUuX

Copyright 2014 L.A. Times

"Until now, we had little idea how much these tiny plastics were present in Australian waters."
Ms Reisser conducted sea surface net tows at 57 locations around Australia, enabling her to collect the characteristics and concentration of marine plastics in Australian waters.
This field data was coupled with modelling data – particle tracking over a 30 day period, and drifter trajectories within the net stations – which were then plotted on the map to show potential plastic pathways.
"Our data and modelling evidenced that Australian waters have moderate concentrations of plastic [4256.4 plastic pieces per km2] compared to those found in areas such as the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Maine [both around 1500 pieces per km2]," Ms Reisser says.
"Plastic hotspots were found close to cities, particularly Sydney and Brisbane, as well as in areas where ocean currents converge.
"The vast majority of the plastics in waters around Australia were smaller than 5mm microplastics resulting from the break-down of larger items, including disposable single-use plastics like plastic cups and fishing equipment made of polyethylene and polypropylene.
"These plastics are coming from a mixture of sources, including Australian and neighbouring countries' populated areas and fishing activities."
Ms Reisser says reducing the production of single-use disposable packaging such as plastic bags and bottles, as well as establishing international plastic disposal practices, are two important steps in addressing this complicated global issue.
She is also interested in the role that biotechnology could play in reducing plastic pollution.
"Biopolymers, made of organisms like seaweeds, could be a great material for creating biodegradable packaging."
"Also, we know there are some microorganisms that can slowly biodegrade plastics … perhaps one day we could develop industrial composts that use marine bacteria or fungus to transform plastic waste into biofuel."

Explore further: Australian waters polluted by harmful tiny plastics

Provided by Science Network WA

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-02-plastics-highly-australian.html#jCp

"Until now, we had little idea how much these tiny plastics were present in Australian waters."
Ms Reisser conducted sea surface net tows at 57 locations around Australia, enabling her to collect the characteristics and concentration of marine plastics in Australian waters.
This field data was coupled with modelling data – particle tracking over a 30 day period, and drifter trajectories within the net stations – which were then plotted on the map to show potential plastic pathways.
"Our data and modelling evidenced that Australian waters have moderate concentrations of plastic [4256.4 plastic pieces per km2] compared to those found in areas such as the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Maine [both around 1500 pieces per km2]," Ms Reisser says.
"Plastic hotspots were found close to cities, particularly Sydney and Brisbane, as well as in areas where ocean currents converge.
"The vast majority of the plastics in waters around Australia were smaller than 5mm microplastics resulting from the break-down of larger items, including disposable single-use plastics like plastic cups and fishing equipment made of polyethylene and polypropylene.
"These plastics are coming from a mixture of sources, including Australian and neighbouring countries' populated areas and fishing activities."
Ms Reisser says reducing the production of single-use disposable packaging such as plastic bags and bottles, as well as establishing international plastic disposal practices, are two important steps in addressing this complicated global issue.
She is also interested in the role that biotechnology could play in reducing plastic pollution.
"Biopolymers, made of organisms like seaweeds, could be a great material for creating biodegradable packaging."
"Also, we know there are some microorganisms that can slowly biodegrade plastics … perhaps one day we could develop industrial composts that use marine bacteria or fungus to transform plastic waste into biofuel."

Explore further: Australian waters polluted by harmful tiny plastics

Provided by Science Network WA

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-02-plastics-highly-australian.html#jCp

"Until now, we had little idea how much these tiny plastics were present in Australian waters."
Ms Reisser conducted sea surface net tows at 57 locations around Australia, enabling her to collect the characteristics and concentration of marine plastics in Australian waters.
This field data was coupled with modelling data – particle tracking over a 30 day period, and drifter trajectories within the net stations – which were then plotted on the map to show potential plastic pathways.
"Our data and modelling evidenced that Australian waters have moderate concentrations of plastic [4256.4 plastic pieces per km2] compared to those found in areas such as the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Maine [both around 1500 pieces per km2]," Ms Reisser says.
"Plastic hotspots were found close to cities, particularly Sydney and Brisbane, as well as in areas where ocean currents converge.
"The vast majority of the plastics in waters around Australia were smaller than 5mm microplastics resulting from the break-down of larger items, including disposable single-use plastics like plastic cups and fishing equipment made of polyethylene and polypropylene.
"These plastics are coming from a mixture of sources, including Australian and neighbouring countries' populated areas and fishing activities."
Ms Reisser says reducing the production of single-use disposable packaging such as plastic bags and bottles, as well as establishing international plastic disposal practices, are two important steps in addressing this complicated global issue.
She is also interested in the role that biotechnology could play in reducing plastic pollution.
"Biopolymers, made of organisms like seaweeds, could be a great material for creating biodegradable packaging."
"Also, we know there are some microorganisms that can slowly biodegrade plastics … perhaps one day we could develop industrial composts that use marine bacteria or fungus to transform plastic waste into biofuel."

Explore further: Australian waters polluted by harmful tiny plastics

Provided by Science Network WA

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-02-plastics-highly-australian.html#jCp

Plastic bags deserve their bad wrap

Posted: 12/31/13 By Doug McIntyre in the Los Angeles Daily News

Of the many new laws making their debut today the one that will be felt by nearly everyone is the ban on single use plastic bags within the city of Los Angeles, making all of L.A. County a bag-free zone.

Unless that bag contains this newspaper.

Or broccoli.

Or the sandwich bag your dealer sells your stash in.

At Ralphs or the corner bodega, you can fill your cart to the brim with boxes of plastic bags; giant black yard bags with pull strings and tiny thin trash can liners, but when you get to the checkout stand you can’t get a plastic bag for your plastic bags.

Nuclear weapons and AR-15s are still legal but plastic bags are verboten.

It’s not the end of the world.

The wife and I live on the edge of Los Angeles and do most of our shopping in stores long subjected to the county ban on bags. I grumbled and adjusted. So will you.

The question is should we be forced by law to do so?

Not that long ago “One for the road” was a way of life in America and every year we lost north of 50,000 on our roads, many to boozed-up drivers.

Along came MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and attitudes changed.

“One for the road” wasn’t so cool anymore. The three-martini lunch became the zero-martini lunch. Laws were toughened and enforcement tightened. We still lose thousands to drunk drivers, but not nearly as many as before.

Not that long ago “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em,” was a common cry. We smoked ourselves to death.

For 40 years Americans have been warned and lectured about the dangers of smoking. We’ve banned smoking practically everywhere and jacked up the price per pack to astronomical levels through punitive taxes, making smokers in California almost as rare as Republicans.

Unless you smoke pot. Somehow pot is still cool.

Like cigarettes used to be.

We are burying ourselves in our own filth and I’d like to believe we’re smarter than that. We’re also burying freedom under an avalanche of legislation and I’d like to believe we love liberty too much to surrender it out of laziness.

Recycling was once patriotic.

During World War II every man, woman and child happily recycled tin cans, paper, nylon, anything necessary to help beat Hitler and Tojo.

It took 80 tons of scrap metal to make one tank. What we couldn’t get through recycling we saved though rationing; butter, fat, gas, oil, grease, sugar were all proscribed by law. Willingly and not so willingly we changed the way we lived for a cause greater than ourselves.

We need to do the same today.

The hundreds of tons of plastics dumped into the ocean each year is a genuine threat to our health and the health of the planet. This isn’t eco-propaganda, although there’s plenty of that floating around as well. The reality of plastics poisoning the ocean is as real as a tax audit.

But first let’s clear up some nonsense.

We’ve all heard about the trash island in the Pacific the size of Texas? Not true. It’s much worse. There are actually five of them around the globe and they’re more like trash soup than trash islands. They’re called “gyres,” enormous spirals of partially decomposed shopping bags, milk containers, wrappers and the million other things we use once and toss away without a second thought.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

We can voluntarily change our behavior because it makes sense, the way we once recycled to beat Hitler, or we can do nothing and wait until the government mandates change by law.

While L.A.’s plastic bag ban reeks of political feel-goodism, the kind of eco-friendly legislation that’s catnip to politicians, it’s at least something.

If we want to keep government from reaching into yet another aspect of our lives, and I do, we need to once again make recycling a patriotic duty. We need to prosecute the slobs who toss trash out their car windows under existing laws.

But let’s not kid ourselves; doing nothing is not an option. The oceans are becoming giant vats of toxic PCBs. Now is the time for all good Earthlings to come to the aid of their planet.

Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sunday and Wednesday. He can be reached at: Doug@KABC.com.

Californians Take Stand in the Sand for Plastic-Free Seas

Posted: 07/03/2013 in the Huffington Post by Lisa Kaas Boyle

It's summer and Californians are at the beach. Surfers and swimmers are enjoying all the classic spots glorified in Beach Boys songs. What's up at the beaches besides the famous waves? Well, the battle to keep the beach and water plastic free is hot as the late afternoon sand.

Outgoing Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa added an environmental feather to his cap by signing legislation to ban single-use plastic bags in the City of Los Angeles. Similar legislation at the state level recently failed by an 18-17 vote in the Senate, 3 votes short of the majority needed for passage. The current number of local ordinances in California now stands at 56 covering 77 cities/counties.

This means 11,461,641 people, or 30 percentage of California's population, is now covered by single use plastic bag bans passed by local jurisdictions. Speaking about the recently enacted Los Angeles City ordinance, Sarah Sikich, Science and Policy Director for Heal the Bay, said,

We congratulate the LA City Council for taking a stand against plastic pollution and making Los Angeles the largest city in the nation to ban plastic bags and charge for paper, driving a transition to the most sustainable alternative, reusable bags. This measure will inspire a shift in mindset from our addiction to single-use convenience to conscious thinking about simple lifestyle changes individuals can make to improve our communities and the environment.

Local California environmental groups have worked hard on passing the bans and will continue their work until the whole state is covered like the State of Hawaii. Kudos go to Heal the Bay, Environment California, Surfrider and Clean Seas Coalition for the many successes on the plastic bag and polystyrene bans (the current number of California Polystyrene Bans stands at 72.)

Plastic Pollution Coalition, a global alliance founded in California, is working hard to spread the message of reducing single use plastics to people around the globe, most recently at a conference on solutions called Think Beyond Plastic and at Bonnaroo music festival where the group worked with artists and the festival to reduce plastic consumption. Country-Punk LA based band Nocona teamed with PPC to share ways to reduce personal consumption of single use plastics during their show on the Rock the Earth curated Solar stage. The band, featuring 5 Gyres board member Elan Glasser on harmonica, showed the crowd how to hydrate responsibly with reusable water bottles. After the show, members of the band posed with a sign that read "Please Stop Plastic Bottles."
The Bonnaroo venue, on a large Tennessee farm owned by the concert producers, has well water hydration stations strategically placed for concert-goers to refill their reusable water containers for free.

In California's Palm Springs, The Coachella Music Festival 2013 had free filtered water available for refilling and a demonstration called The Oasis by Global Inheritance of tap water and even filtered, reclaimed waste water that tested and tasted as clean as any mountain spring. Really. I tried it.

Los Angeles-based We Tap is behind a smartphone application to locate public water fountains in California. Their mission is to help people locate good, fresh water on-the-go for refillable bottles or a quick drink, instead of relying on plastic packaged water.

Santa Monica-based 5 Gyres Institute is a national leader in the battle against plastic microbeads in products that wash straight into our streams, rivers, lakes and ocean the drains in our homes. These plastic micro-beads have become common in cosmetic, toothpaste and cleaning products as exfoliants replacing natural and biodegradable scrubbers. 5 Gyres is publishing groundbreaking research on plastic micro-beads accumulating in the Great Lakes. With the help of partners Plastic Free Seas and Plastic Soup Foundation, 5 Gyres has claimed some major victories in removing plastic beads from products produced by Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson and L'Oreal/The Body Shop. One big target remains: Procter & Gamble. After a massive letter writing and social media blitz, The 5 Gyres Institute received word from Procter & Gamble's Harald Schlatter, that Procter & Gamble will remove plastic micro-beads from their products by 2017. The 5 Gyres site reports,

Though we applaud this move, The 5 Gyres Institute along with core campaign partners The Plastic Soup Foundation, Plastic Free Seas, and a coalition of nearly 100 NGOs worldwide believe this phase-out timeline is far too long. We have made demands with other manufacturers that all beads be removed by no later than January 1st, 2015 and wrote a letter to this effect that went unanswered by Mr. Schlatter.

5 Gyres is leading a campaign to get this giant global corporation to remove plastic micro-beads from its products worldwide by 1/1/2015. You may add your name to the campaign here.

Los Angeles-based sports television personality Angela Sun is on a national tour of film fests with her excellent documentary Plastic Paradise about the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" a collection of plastic waste in the Pacific Ocean 1000 miles off the California coast.

And more than 3,500 kids in Los Angeles took a stand in the sand against plastic pollution on the 20th anniversary of Kids Ocean Day in Los Angeles, forming a with their bodies on the beach asking for us to LISTEN to the ocean and stop polluting it with our plastic trash. Similar Kids Ocean Day events were held in San Francisco and San Diego.

California, known for its seemingly endless beautiful coastline, is also a source of endless ingenuity and passion for protecting our natural resources from plastic waste. Way to go, Californians!

L.A.'s sweeping ban isn't in the bag yet

posted By Steve Lopez May 23, 2012 in the L.A. Times

Councilman Paul Koretz has proposed banning plastic and paper bags. But lobbyists for the bag industry are pitching a weaker alternative at City Hall.

Under the proposal, Los Angeles would become a national leader in the proliferation of reusable bags. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

A lobbyist representing a consortium of plastic bag producers was roaming the halls of Los Angeles City Hall this week, trying to torpedo Wednesday's anticipated City Council vote to ban the ubiquitous, flimsy flower that litters the urban landscape and fouls the seashore.

Naturally, environmentalists were in a tizzy, fearing the worst outcome while hoping for the best. Under the proposal by Councilman Paul Koretz, paper bags would also be banned, and Los Angeles would become a national leader in the proliferation of reusable bags.

The worry among enviros was that a weaker and more voluntary alternative proposal, drafted by the bag industry and offering retailers a chance to buy out of the restrictions by paying a fee to the city, might be introduced if a sponsor could be found. They're also nervous about rumors that former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez himself was in the hall on behalf of the bag people. Nuñez is unloved by green-folk for helping to scuttle a statewide bag ban two years ago. But I couldn't find anyone who'd actually seen Nuñez. Was he lobbying in broom closets?

I suggested to one council member that there was an easy way to flush him out. Announce a high-end wine tasting in the rotunda, with a junket to study bag disposal in and around four-star European hotels. Nuñez — famous for his champagne tastes while globe-trotting on the state dime — would be first in line.

But when I called Nuñez's office, a colleague returned the call to say Nuñez was not lobbying in L.A. He was in Sacramento, "providing strategic counsel" on the bag issue.

And what exactly does that mean?

"It means advising clients."

And who are the clients?

"A consortium of plastic bag manufacturers."

This person said I needed to talk to Vanessa Rodriguez, who was doing the actual City Hall lobbying for Mercury Public Affairs. But Rodriguez called me from City Hall and said I needed instead to talk to Donna Dempsey of the American Progressive Bag Alliance, who was also making the rounds in City Hall.

I was waiting for the promised call from Dempsey when someone called from Hilex Poly, a plastic bag manufacturer and recycler in South Carolina, saying that no, Dempsey would not be speaking to me. They were trying to get hold of someone else who could answer my questions.

If I might offer a bit of strategic counsel — for far less than whatever Nuñez is charging — it isn't good PR to act like you're trying to hide something.

In the end, Mark Daniels of Hilex Poly called to answer my questions. He's chair of the American Progressive Bag Alliance — are there regressive bag alliances? — and he thinks the L.A. bag ban introduced by Councilman Koretz is "just a terrible idea," and he threw in "outrageous" for good measure.

Banning plastic and paper bags will cost "a tremendous amount" of sack manufacturing jobs held mostly by Latinos in California, and export them to China, Daniels claims. He also said plastic bags can be and are recycled in great numbers, and charging a buck or two for reusable bags is a hardship for many families. He said the Koretz plan to have stores temporarily charge 10 cents for paper bags until an eventual ban is regressive, and he argued that proponents are over-estimating the amount of bag litter, underestimating the amount of recycling, and exaggerating the amount of damage to marine life caused by bags.

"You think 3 million people are going to clean their reusable bags after every use?" asked Daniels, who claimed that plastic bags account for such a tiny fraction of litter, banning them "will have zero environmental impact."

He was beginning to sound like a man whose main interest is selling bags.

Zero environmental impact?

By some estimates, the amount of plastic bags in California's waste stream is in the thousands of tons, many of them are not biodegradable, and the cost of disposal is in the many millions.

I once slogged through Compton Creek with Heal the Bay, before L.A. County supervisors beat the L.A. City Council to the punch and banned plastic bags and reported a 94% reduction in the use of plastic bags, and they were wrapped around plants and layered into the banks like lasagna. Everyone has seen them draped against fences, dancing down streets and clogging storm drains. A 2010 survey by Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup found that plastic bags were second on the floating litter list behind cigarette butts and ahead of food wrappers, caps, lids, cans and bottles. Paper bags rounded out the top 10.

Koretz said only a small fraction of plastic bags manufactured in California end up in Los Angeles, so claims of big local job losses are nonsense. He said there's a local program in which veterans are producing reusable bags, and he thinks more green jobs would be created with a plastic ban.

Councilman Tom LaBonge, for one, favors the ban on plastic bags, which he says are a particular eyesore along the Los Angeles River. LaBonge said he wonders why the city doesn't attempt to collect fines for littering as aggressively as it goes after parking and traffic infractions.

But he's not sure about the ban on paper bags. He wants an updated study on where trash comes from and where it ends up. I'm hearing that other council members may have the same reservations about banning paper.

Koretz's plan calls for a six-month education period, followed by a ban on plastic and an 18-month period in which paper bags cost 10 cents before being banned altogether. He told me he's thinking about a revision in which the total ban on paper would be put to a vote at the end of the 18-month trial.

On a personal note, I have several reusable bags, but often leave them in my trunk at the grocery store and get paper bags, which I use to recycle newspapers at my house. If the store begins charging me 10 cents apiece, I'll stop getting paper bags.

Hey, it works.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

The Argument against Banning the Bag

Plastic Bag Ban Will Put Los Angeles In Landfill

 

Proposal would provide no environmental benefits and deepen city’s economic depression.

Posted May 23, 2012 on reason.com by Jay Beeber |

There’s a crisis in Los Angeles. Is it the city’s projected $250 million budget deficit? The city’s $10 billion shortfall in pension obligations? Its crumbling infrastructure? A public school dropout rate approaching 50 percent?

No, the City of Angels is facing catastrophe in the form of grocery bags. 

So great is the menace that the City Council is poised to impose on the good people of Los Angeles the country’s strictest grocery bag ban, prohibiting the distribution of both plastic and paper bags.

Proponents give three reasons for the bag ban. They claim it will reduce the amount of waste entering landfills, reduce litter on streets, and “help protect the environment.”

But banning free grocery bags will not achieve those lofty goals.

First, banning free plastic grocery bags won’t reduce waste. California’s Statewide Waste Characterization Study [pdf] shows that “Plastic Grocery and Other Merchandise Bags” consistently make up just 0.3 percent of the waste stream in the state. That’s three-tenths of 1 percent.

In comparison, organic waste such as food and yard clippings makes up 32 percent while construction debris comprises about 30 percent. The effect of eliminating free grocery bags on the amount of waste generated in the city would be insignificant.

Second, despite misleading claims from environmental groups and the L.A. Bureau of Sanitation, banning free plastic grocery bags won’t do much to reduce litter in the public commons. Litter studies from across the country demonstrate that, on average, plastic retail bags make up about 1 percent to 2 percent of all litter.

Even that small amount of litter doesn’t decline when bans are enacted. In San Francisco, plastic bags comprised 0.6 percent of litter before the city banned plastic bags and 0.64 percent a year after the ban took effect [pdf, pg. 35]. Since plastic grocery bags make up less than 2 percent of roadside trash, banning them will affect neither the total amount of litter nor the cost of cleaning it up.

Third, banning free plastic grocery bags won’t reduce our consumption of foreign (or domestic) oil. L.A.’s Bureau of Sanitation claims [pdf] that “approximately 12 million barrels of oil go into the US supply of plastic bags.” But plastic bags made in the U.S. are not derived from oil; they’re made from a byproduct of domestic natural gas refinement. Manufacturing plastic grocery bags does not increase our need to import oil, and banning them in Los Angeles or anywhere else will not reduce US oil consumption.

Despite claims that plastics threaten our oceans and sea life, there is no evidence that free plastic grocery bags make up any significant portion of the plastic waste found on beaches or in the ocean. In fact, reports from environmental groups doing beach and ocean clean-ups show that plastic bags make up only about 2 percent of the debris.

Furthermore, reusable bags being touted as a “green” alternative carry their own environmental costs.  Unlike locally manufactured plastic bags, reusable woven bags are primarily produced in China and imported to the U.S. on cargo ships which burn millions of gallons of dirty low-grade fuel oil. Because they’re made of mixed materials, these reusable bags can’t be recycled and will eventually end up in landfills, unlike plastic grocery bags which are fully recyclable.

Bags made of canvas have an even greater impact on the environment due to the natural resources required to grow cotton and manufacture bags. Frequently, reusable bags often carry more than just groceries. In a recent study by the University of Arizona, almost every bag sampled contained large amounts of bacteria including coliform, E. coli, and other opportunistic pathogens. The public is being instructed to wash these bags after each use, which, over time, will require huge amounts of energy and waste precious water.

So if banning free plastic grocery bags won’t save the planet, what will it do? For one thing, it will lead to the loss of American jobs. More than 30,000 people in the U.S. are directly employed by the plastic bag manufacturing and recycling industry, and thousands more are indirectly employed.

If passed, the L.A. bag ban could potentially lead to the loss of manufacturing jobs that support more than 1,000 families in the Los Angeles area alone, according to Pete Grande, CEO at Command Packaging, a recycler and producer of environmentally friendly plastic bags.

Where patrons have the option to shop in communities without bag bans, that’s exactly what they choose to do. According to Sid Marantz, Program Director for Marantz & Associates, a local provider of grocery store supplies, after Los Angeles County imposed a plastic bag ban in unincorporated areas, shoppers simply went elsewhere and merchants unlucky enough to be located where the ban was imposed have seen a significant decline in business.

The ban on both paper and plastic would also directly lead to a loss of economic activity. With no choice other than to carry stacks of reusable bags or purchase unneeded extra bags, shoppers will have less money for shopping. The 90 percent of the population who now reuse free plastic grocery bags for trash and pet waste will have to buy replacements, depressing their discretionary income.

But the real crisis—the one that rarely gets discussed—is that these types of bans require another public acceptance of total government intrusion into our lives. Is it a legitimate role of government to prohibit one individual from giving a free bag to another individual on the pretext of a supposed societal benefit that does not withstand even friendly scrutiny?

Doesn’t every human interaction, no matter how small, have some arguable effect on society?  And if so, what’s to prevent those who seek to dictate how everyone lives from invoking that argument at every turn? The crisis in Los Angeles and around the country is that too few people are asking those questions.

Jay Beeber is a filmmaker and activist living in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Bans Plastic Bags, Charges for Paper Bags

posted 05/24/2012 in SustainableBusiness.com

Los Angeles is the largest US city to ban the ever-present plastic bag in a vote of 13-1.

The ban applies to all 7500 supermarkets and requires retailers to charge 10-cents for each paper bag.

Once the City crafts an ordinance, large supermarkets will have six months, and smaller ones will have a year to eliminate plastic bags. In about 16 months, people will have to pay 10 cents per paper bag ... or, gasp! bring their own reusable bag.

Other Plastic Bag Bans
About a dozen California municipalities have banned them, including San Jose, San Francisco, Long Beach and Santa Monica. Oakland dropped its proposed ban when it was sued, but it will be covered by Alameda County's ban, which starts next year.

The bans vary between cities - some apply to all retailers, but none charge for paper bags, an important step in getting people to bring their own. Producing paper bags is actually more resource-intensive - in terms of the trees and water required - than plastic.
There's already a 10-cent paper bag fee in Los Angeles County, which has cut the use 94%, Jennie Romer of Plastic Bag Laws told the LA Times.

California attempted to pass a state-wide ban in 2010, but  industry lobbying killed the bill. There have also been attempts to ban plastic take-out containers, and many cities have a partial or total ban on polystyrene food containers. 

Last year, Seattle unanimously voted to ban plastic bags and charge 5 cents for paper bags. In 2008, Seattle moved to charge 20-cents for paper or plastic, but the industry spent $1.6 million convincing people to vote against it in a referendum. It also banned polystyrene and styrofoam take-out containers and plastic utensils. Bellingham, Edmonds and Mukilteo also banned plastic bags last year.

The Hawaiian islands of Maui and Kauai, and over 30 coastal towns in Alaska have banned plastic bags.

And there are bans in Ireland, Italy, China, South Africa and Bangladesh.

Just about every city, state or country that's banned them has had the same result. Plastic-related industries fight tooth and nail about the devastating impact it will have on business and jobs lost, people and businesses grumble, and then ... it works.

Which industries are against it? Petroleum and chemical companies, state food merchant associations, bag wholesalers and distributors, the American Chemistry Council, which represents plastic and chemical companies, and the Progressive Bag Alliance, the plastic bag makers trade group. They lobby in every city, often winning, pushing for bag recycling instead of bans.

Why the Ban?
Clean water advocates have been campaigning on this issue for years. 12 billion plastic bags a year are consumed in California - less than 5% is recycled. It costs $25 million a year just to bury those bags in landfills.

Bans reduce the amount of garbage going to landfills - which costs $25 million a year in California - and they unintentionally end up in the state's waterways and the ocean. 

"Some of the litter, like thin film single use plastic bags which choke marine life, should be banned or phased-out rapidly everywhere - there is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere," said Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, in a report about the growing tide of marine litter.
 
Plastic - especially plastic bags and PET bottles - accounts for over 80% of marine litter around the world, says the report.

There's no better example of this needless litter than the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, known as the North Pacific Gyre - twice the size of Texas.

Four million tons of floating plastic waste can be seen in every direction, but it's the plastic that's broken down into much smaller pieces that is the greatest concern. Plastic photodegrades - sunlight causes it to become brittle and break into ever smaller pieces.

Eventually these tiny pieces resemble plankton, the primary organism on the marine food chain. Random water samplings taken from the Garbage Patch contain hundreds or even thousands of plastic pieces for each actual plankton. These pieces, which don't exactly float or sink, are suspended in the top 30 meters of water. One researcher said the underwater scene is like being inside an enormous snow globe.

Each speck of plastic collects persistent organic pollutants -chemical toxins like DDT and other pesticides that are prevalent in the ocean and cling to the plastic. Organisms eat it and it moves up the food chain.

"You can't cross an ocean today without finding plastic pollution," says Cummins, co-founder of 5 Gyres Institute.

This website shows cities how to pass bans that hold up against industry litigation:

Website: http://plasticbaglaws.org/