Plastic bags remain legal in California
By Laurel Rosenhall, Sacramento Bee
A proposal to ban plastic grocery bags in California went the way of so many plastic bags – into the trash can – on Thursday when it failed to garner enough votes in the state Senate to move ahead in the lawmaking process.
Senate Bill 405 by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima, would have prohibited supermarkets and drugstores from providing plastic shopping bags to consumers beginning in 2015. Paper bags would be available for purchase. Padilla argued that the ban would be good for the environment, reduce litter and help local governments that now deal with cleaning them up. Many senators said the bill would promote good habits among Californians, who would get used to carrying their own reusable shopping bags.
But several of Padilla’s Democratic colleagues opposed the measure, saying it would cut jobs for constituents who work in Los Angeles-area bag factories and would hurt consumers who re-use their plastic bags for garbage, dog waste and other household needs. Republicans also opposed it, saying the Legislature had more important things to work on.
“I think there is an education campaign necessary,” Padilla said after the final 18-17 vote on his bill.
Four senators did not vote – Democrats Ben Hueso, Curren Price, Lois Wolk and Rod Wright. Padilla said he hopes to persuade them to vote for his bill and wants to move it from the Senate’s trash can to its recycling bin, so it can get another vote next year.
Plastics are not good for the environment in any form. Yet luckily soon there will be the first facility in Los Angeles that will process all waste, in an environmentally friendly way.
Eco Sphere Sciences, Carson City Nevada, and three other companies will soon be installing the first system that combines Anerobic Digestion and Aerobic Digestion. This system will process trash Anerobically to create methane for Bio Fuel usage, the output of this first system will be sent to the Aerobic Muncher system to complete the process of cleaning up the output from the Anerobic System and turning it into a growth enhancement formula similar to compost. 150 tons will be processed per day. Using the Aerobic Muncher eliminates the need for acres of land to process in the normal fashion.
The Aerobic Muncher can process all waste, except metals and ceramics, into compost within 45 minutes. Several systems are currently being planed that will process 50 tons a day, another for 300 tons a day, and one for Mexico will process 900 tons per day.
The good news is that all plastic bags will be turned into fuel and compost. No more plastic polution.
http://www.ecospheresciences.com
How Pathetic is this! Just today I saw about 50 plastic bags full of garbage that the critters got into as some pathetic neighbor/renter just put them out on the curb (trash day is friday) and the loose dogs and bears spread the trash everywhere. Im sure their intestines are all knotted up with the plastic. So nice…