Laguna Beach Plastic Bag Ban Starts Today

Long Beach, in Los Angeles County, bans plastic bags. I pay 10 cents for a paper bag whenever I stop off at Wal-Mart on the way home from work. It's lame. And it's coming to the O.C.

At the O.C. Register, "Laguna plastic-bag ban begins today." The best part is the argument against from the surprisingly-named American Progressive Bag Alliance:

"Laguna Beach's plastic bag ban and paper bag tax will not only hurt consumers' pockets but also push them toward less sustainable alternatives," chairman Mark Daniels said in the statement. "Paper bags are a worse environmental option at checkout – using a large amount of water and emitting more greenhouse gases than plastic bags, and reusable bags cannot be recycled and are predominately imported from China."

The organization shared the following data:

• Reusable bags have been found to host dangerous bacteria, which can carry disease;
• Plastic bags aren't usually single-use, they said, with 90% of Americans reporting they re-use their plastic bags;
• Cloth bags must be used 131 times to ensure their footprint is less than a plastic bag, according to a U.K. government study;
• Seven times the number of trucks are required to deliver paper bags versus one truck for plastic;
• Plastic bag production consumes 4 percent of the water used in paper bag production.

Long Beach and Los Angeles County have similar ordinances.

Right on.