Plastic bag industry spins and spends in Seattle

By Laura Reinhard, Policy Associate

Watch out for higher prices in your grocery bills — maybe plastic bags will end up costing stores even more as plastic bag industry lawyers and lobbyists fly around the country squashing local initiatives.

Seattle’s groundbreaking proposal to place a 20-cent fee on all single-use bags was defeated Tuesday in a David v. Goliath PR battle. The plastic bag industry shelled out the first round of cash to get signatures to put the ordinance, previously approved by city council, on the ballot. A syndicated AP article reports the bag industry spent $1.4 million to defeat the proposal. Unfortunately, the bag industry is much better prepared to take on these fights than it was just a few years ago, when few cities were considering bag ban or fee ordinances. When plastic bag industry representatives sued Fairfax, CA for passing a plastic bag ban ordinance, Fairfax took it to the voters themselves and passed the measure with 79% of the vote.

But Fairfax is a small city and times have changed. Now, the list of cities considering bag ban or fee ordinances is long and the plastic bag industry, recognizing the threat, is out in force.

That doesn’t mean that cities have to capitulate to industry pressure. This year Washington, D.C. passed a single-use bag fee, despite the bag industry paying for a presidential-election style spin campaign complete with automated calls to residents. And just this spring, Palo Alto, CA successfully passed a ban restricting large grocers from distributing single-use plastic bags, despite a lawsuit from plastic bag industry lawyers.

So what should reusable bag advocates take away from this experience? For one, cities trying to cut down on unnecessary plastic bag litter and help solve the problem of marine plastic should expect well-funded lobbyists flying in from corporate HQ. Communities must be prepared to overcome this by speaking up loudly for policies that restrict the distribution of free plastic bags. San Jose, CA is considering enacting a strong policy to prevent free plastic bag distribution. We urge residents of San Jose and San Jose elected officials to take this opportunity to stand up for a clean community and a healthy San Francisco Bay.

Just like Big Tobacco, the plastic bag industry will have to fight these battles until they find a new line of work.

Help us raise $500 to fight plastic pollution in the Bay!

by Amy Alton, Communications and Policy Associate

Over one million – that's right, one million!! – plastic bags end up in the Bay every year, polluting our waters, smothering wetlands and killing Bay animals. Plastic never biodegrades; and plastic waste from the Bay flows into the ocean to join the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating island of trash estimated to be twice the size of Texas. We want this scourge to stop!

And we need your help. If we raise $500 from our Facebook community by August 31st one of our Board Members will match every contribution dollar-for-dollar to help us clean up the Bay. And University of Phoenix will match it again! That’s $1,500 for our Bay!

If we all donate just $5 or $10 we can help Save The Bay meet this goal. Join our Cause today and your gift will be tripled!

To learn more about Save The Bay’s work towards a clean and healthy Bay, visit: www.saveSFbay.org/bayissues.

Thank you for your help!

Runoff pollution running through the Bay

by Amy Alton, Communications and Policy Associate

NRDC recently released their annual beach water quality report, naming storm water runoff – an untreated toxic brew of trash, oil, pesticides, heavy metals and chemicals – as the #1 source of pollution in our Bay and waterways.

Read all about it.

The truth is most of the pollution in San Francisco Bay doesn’t come from shoreline industry or boaters. It comes from all of us. Pollution from our homes, cars and neighborhoods, which includes plastic bags, Styrofoam cups, cigarette butts, and toxic chemicals like pharmaceuticals and mercury, flows unfiltered through storm drains into the Bay, killing wildlife, smothering wetlands and spoiling water quality.

Fortunately for us and for the Bay, since we create this pollution, we have the power to diminish it. All it takes are simple lifestyle changes to protect the Bay.

Click here to learn how you can reduce Bay pollution.

Sticking to the ban

by Amy Alton, Communications and Policy Associate

Yesterday, the City of Palo Alto settled out of court with an industry-backed group, Save The Plastic Bag Coalition (no joke!), over the city's plastic bag ban, which is set to go into effect on September 18.

Both the San Jose Mercury News and the Palo Alto Weekly ran stories about the settlement.

Under the settlement, the city will be able to maintain its ban. But any expansion would have to be accompanied by a complete environmental review. This is good news for both the city of Palo Alto and for other Bay Area cities looking to reduce plastic bag litter and pollution in their cities and in the Bay. Right now a statewide coalition of municipalities, non-profits and foundations is working together to draft a master environmental assessment, which will help cities complete the necessary environmental reviews to pass ordinances that either ban or impose fees on single-use bags.

Kudos to Palo Alto for taking on the plastic bag industry and banning plastic bags to clean up the environment and their community!

To learn more about plastic bag pollution and its effects on wildlife and the Bay, visit: www.saveSFbay.org/bayvsbag.

The Chron calls out Cargill

by Amy Alton, Communications and Policy Associate

Today the San Francisco Chronicle ran a feature editorial, "Bay at risk," which calls out Cargill’s proposed development in Redwood City as one of the major threats to the health of the San Francisco Bay. Other dangers to “the lifeblood of our region” include trash, chemical pollution, climate change and regulatory oversight, as the state budget woes threaten the existence of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

As the Bay’s leading champion since 1961, Save The Bay wages effective advocacy and education campaigns to diminish these threats. We are working diligently to:

Stop Cargill’s unwise development in the Bay;

Reduce Bay pollution through public education and urging local governments to enact strong pollution prevention policies, and requiring stricter regulation of trash in the upcoming municipal stormwater permit;

Re-establish 100,000 acres of wetlands around the Bay for a sustainable ecosystem and to provide natural flood control to protect Bay Area communities from the impacts of sea-level rise, and;

Advocate at the state level to save BCDC, the agency that regulates Bay shoreline development.

However, we cannot do it alone. As underscored by the Chronicle, “The Bay needs the local community more than ever."

Please join us today in protecting and restoring San Francisco Bay by becoming a member, taking action to protect the Bay, and helping us restore critical wetlands around the shoreline.

Our quality of life and economy depend on this great natural treasure. And the Bay needs all of us working together to save it.

Ecology in Education -- Makin' it Work

by Sigrid Mueller, Education Director and Alicia Moore, School Programs Manager

Connecting students to the San Francisco Bay and supporting teachers who share this commitment have always been at the core of Save The Bay’s educational vision. We believe that outdoor environmental education – such as our Watershed Education Programs – works best with appropriate preparation and follow-up. And, recent research supports the idea that students learn and retain more when field-trip activities are bookended by classroom lessons.

Since 1999 Save The Bay has hosted a professional development workshop for teachers interested in our Watershed Education Programs. Our regular evaluation has found that teachers desire, and benefit from, methods and strategies to integrate the field trip experience into the classroom lesson plan. Our workshop teaches classroom techniques to prepare for and get the most from our field trips.

This summer our workshop added an additional day to help teachers incorporate the field trip into the classroom. Participants worked with Save The Bay staff and colleagues to design lesson plans derived from our Canoes In Sloughs and Community-based Restoration field trips – to strengthen the impact on students and improve learning outcomes.

From June 30 to July 2, sixteen middle and high school teachers and five environmental educators gathered to explore in canoes and restore wetlands, and learn how to bring it all back to the classroom. Highlights from the two field-based days included seeing California Clapper Rails in their native habitat, identifying invertebrates and native wetland plants, and discussing the importance of service learning. Participants were also excited to have a third day to work on classroom lesson plans with Save The Bay staff and their colleagues. As one teacher remarked: "It was incredibly beneficial to actually conduct some lessons and discuss them with our peers. It makes it much easier to actually integrate field experiences into my teaching if I have done it before."

To learn more about Save The Bay's Watershed Education programs, visit: www.saveSFbay.org/education.

Here are a few photos taken during the three-day workshop:

How clean is your city?

Last year Save The Bay launched the Clean Bay Project (formerly Cities Keep It Clean) to provide Bay Area cities with a roadmap to a cleaner San Francisco Bay and empower them to adopt innovative and common sense programs to reduce Bay runoff pollution.

The Bay Area's largest city, San Jose, is the first Clean Bay Project partner. But we need more cities to participate – and that's where you come in. Help us determine which cities have effective pollution programs, which are behind the times, and what programs you’d like to see in your community!

Please take just five minutes to complete this short survey and you will be entered to win an iPod shuffle.

We are counting on your input to help make the Clean Bay Project even stronger. We’ll compile your answers and share with you the results.

Pollution threatens our quality of life, health and economy. Please take the short survey today and help our community clean up the Bay! And be sure to forward this email to your friends so they can take the survey too!