Source: http://www.environmentcalifornia.org/reports/oceans/oceans-reports/leading-the-way-toward-a-clean-ocean-communities-around-the-world-take-action-against-plastic-bags
Update, July 2011:
On July 14th 2011, The California Supreme Court ruled that the city of Manhattan Beach can enforce a local ordinance banning plastic bags. The policy had been held up by a lawsuit brought by the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition. Manhattan Beach can now move forward on their bag ban, bringing the total number of California cities and counties that have successfully taken action against plastic bag pollution to 12.
[1] http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S180720.PDF
[1] http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S180720.PDF
Plastic bags contribute to the pollution of California’s ocean and beaches.
- Californians use approximately 16 billion plastic bags per year—more than 400 annually per person.
- Less than 5 percent of plastic bags are recycled. Instead, they end up sitting in landfills, littering streets, clogging streams, fouling beaches, or floating out to sea.
- Plastic trash threatens ocean ecosystems. Sea turtles and other marine animals often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and eat them, causing injury or death. In parts of the Pacific Ocean, including the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, plastic outweighs plankton by up to six times.
- The city of San Francisco estimated that the taxpayer cost to subsidize the recycling, collection, and disposal of plastic and paper bags amounts to as much as 17 cents per bag. Applied to California as a whole, that adds up to more than $1 billion per year.
More than 80 national and local governments around the world have taken action to protect the ocean by reducing the use of plastic bags.
- At least 20 nations and 47 local governments have passed bans on distributing specific kinds of throw-away plastic bags, including the nations of Italy, Kenya, Mongolia, Macedonia, and Bangladesh; the states of Maharashtra, India and Buenos Aires, Argentina; and the cities of Karachi, Pakistan and Telluride, Colorado.
- Approximately 26 nations and local communities have established fee programs to reduce plastic bag use and/or increase the use of reusable alternatives, including Botswana, China, Hong Kong, Wales, Ireland, Israel, Canada’s Northwest Territories, Toronto, Mexico City, and Washington, D.C.
Bans and meaningful fee programs effectively reduce plastic bag pollution.
- Bans and fee programs quickly reduce plastic bag distribution. Ireland, which in 2002 established a fee roughly equivalent to 28 U.S. cents per bag, saw plastic bag use drop by 90 percent within the first year. After Washington, D.C., implemented a much smaller 5 cent tax on plastic bags, the number of bags distributed by food retailers fell from 22.5 million per month to 3.3 million per month. And the year after banning plastic bags at pharmacies and supermarkets in 2007, San Francisco businesses distributed 127 million fewer plastic bags, and cut overall bag waste reaching the city landfill by up to 10 percent.
Eleven city and county governments in California have taken successful action to reduce plastic bag pollution.
- Eleven California cities and counties have bans on plastic bags in effect, including Long Beach, Santa Monica, San Jose, San Francisco, and unincorporated Marin and unincorporated Los Angeles counties. Five of these communities, including Marin County and San Jose, have also authorized mandatory charges on paper bags to encourage citizens to use reusable bags.
- Two additional communities, Oakland and Manhattan Beach, passed bans that were later struck down after legal challenges by plastic bag manufacturers.
Much more progress can be made to reduce plastic pollution in the ocean and transform our throw-away culture.
- Education and recycling cannot keep pace with the generation of plastic bag pollution. Despite a 2006 law requiring retailers to place bag recycling bins in front of their stores, less than 5 percent of bags are recycled.
- To make a real impact, all California cities and counties should restrict the use of plastic bags, and advocate for similar action at the state level.
Executive Summary
In the long debate about outer continental shelf (OCS) drilling, policy makers and the public have typically focused on how much more oil or natural gas would be produced, how much more tax revenue would be collected and how many new jobs would be created if the nation expanded areas available for drilling. One set of issues, a critical set from the standpoint of healthy oceans, that has largely been ignored is the marine resources and sustainable activities that would be subjected to potential harm from new offshore drilling. For the first time, this report collects comprehensive information about what’s at risk in the ocean and on our precious coasts should offshore drilling be expanded to areas like the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific coast.
The report includes an overview of the marine and coastal environment in each Minerals Management Service (MMS) planning area including special marine ecosystems, unique coastal places and parks, extraordinary marine life and the value of coastal recreation and fishing (commercial and recreational) for each state within the MMS region. For each MMS planning region, the report compares the annual value of sustainable activities like tourism and fishing to the value of estimated oil and natural gas resources in the region.
The report includes an overview of the marine and coastal environment in each Minerals Management Service (MMS) planning area including special marine ecosystems, unique coastal places and parks, extraordinary marine life and the value of coastal recreation and fishing (commercial and recreational) for each state within the MMS region. For each MMS planning region, the report compares the annual value of sustainable activities like tourism and fishing to the value of estimated oil and natural gas resources in the region.
The table above clearly shows that for most planning regions other than the Central and Western Gulf of Mexico, the annual economic value of sustainable activities like 2 coastal recreation and fishing, which depend on clean water and clean beaches, is somewhat larger, sometimes by an order of magnitude, than the estimated annual value of oil and gas production from that region.
Specifically, the annual value of sustainable activities is roughly between 1.5 to 20 times larger than the value of oil and gas production for each region with the exception of parts of the Gulf of Mexico where approximately 20% of U.S. oil and gas is produced. In the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, the most hotly contested area for new drilling, sustainable businesses and jobs generate almost one and a half times (140%) the value that new oil and gas drilling would. for very long periods of time as long as they are not degraded, emphasize the global importance of healthy oceans and preserving marshes, mangroves, sea grasses and other estuarine environments.1 Our estimates of the value of coastal dependent businesses obviously do not include the value of the ecosystems services that these places provide. If calculated and added in, the ratio of sustainable activity to oil and gas value would be even more lopsided.
While not the detailed subject of this report, numerous reports detail damages from oil and gas exploration, drilling, production and refining2. These activities are not compatible with healthy oceans, beaches or coasts. Catastrophic oil spills from platforms, pipelines, tankers/barges and from onshore facilities occur often enough to raise grave concerns.
Chronic pollution from produced water, the water that is often brought up with oil and gas, and dumped into the ocean is also a problem. Drilling itself releases toxic drilling mud into the marine environment. Oil and gas exploration requires seismic surveys of tens of millions of acres of ocean using very high sound levels that hurt fish and marine mammals. If we wish to preserve sustainable activities like coastal recreation and fishing and the economic value these activities produce, we must then keep the nonrenewable activities like oil and gas production out of new areas of the ocean.
Specifically, the annual value of sustainable activities is roughly between 1.5 to 20 times larger than the value of oil and gas production for each region with the exception of parts of the Gulf of Mexico where approximately 20% of U.S. oil and gas is produced. In the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, the most hotly contested area for new drilling, sustainable businesses and jobs generate almost one and a half times (140%) the value that new oil and gas drilling would. for very long periods of time as long as they are not degraded, emphasize the global importance of healthy oceans and preserving marshes, mangroves, sea grasses and other estuarine environments.1 Our estimates of the value of coastal dependent businesses obviously do not include the value of the ecosystems services that these places provide. If calculated and added in, the ratio of sustainable activity to oil and gas value would be even more lopsided.
While not the detailed subject of this report, numerous reports detail damages from oil and gas exploration, drilling, production and refining2. These activities are not compatible with healthy oceans, beaches or coasts. Catastrophic oil spills from platforms, pipelines, tankers/barges and from onshore facilities occur often enough to raise grave concerns.
Chronic pollution from produced water, the water that is often brought up with oil and gas, and dumped into the ocean is also a problem. Drilling itself releases toxic drilling mud into the marine environment. Oil and gas exploration requires seismic surveys of tens of millions of acres of ocean using very high sound levels that hurt fish and marine mammals. If we wish to preserve sustainable activities like coastal recreation and fishing and the economic value these activities produce, we must then keep the nonrenewable activities like oil and gas production out of new areas of the ocean.
Special areas of the ocean and specific unique marine wildlife that would be threatened by the expansion of offshore drilling are presented in each chapter of the report and summarized in the table below. Generally speaking, drilling threatens coastal beaches, beach communities and estuaries because of the risk of oil spills. Crude oil is difficult or impossible to clean up in many coastal environments, especially if it gets into sandy, muddy or marshy areas. Offshore oil requires onshore infrastructure for pipelines, tanks, processing and support facilities. These are often sited in low lying coastal estuaries that industrialize the coast.
Industrial facilities continue to dump millions of pounds of toxic chemicals into America’s rivers, streams, lakes and ocean waters each year—threatening both the environment and human health. According to the EPA, pollution from industrial facilities is responsible for threatening or fouling water quality in more than 10,000 miles of rivers and more than 200,000 acres of lakes, ponds and estuaries nationwide.
The continued release of large volumes of toxic chemicals into the nation’s waterways shows that the nation needs to do more to reduce the threat posed by toxic chemicals to our environment and our health and to ensure that our waterways are fully protected against harmful pollution.
Industrial facilities dumped 232 million pounds of toxic chemicals into American waterways in 2007, according to the federal government’s Toxic Release Inventory.
• Toxic chemicals were discharged to more than 1,900 waterways in all 50 states. The Ohio River ranked first for toxic discharges in 2007, followed by the New River and the Mississippi River.
• Nitrate compounds— which can cause serious health problems in infants if found in drinking water and which contribute to oxygen-depleted “dead zones” in waterways – are by far the largest toxic releases in terms of overall volume.
Large amounts of toxic chemicals linked to serious health effects were released to America’s waterways in 2007.
• Industrial facilities discharged approximately 1.5 million pounds of chemicals linked to cancer to more than 1,300 waterways during 2007. The Ohio River received the greatest amount of cancer-causing chemical discharges, followed by the Catawba River in North and South Carolina and the Tennessee River. Pulp and paper mills, along with coal-fired power plants, were among the largest dischargers of cancer-causing chemicals.
• About 456,000 pounds of chemicals
Wasting Our Waterways
Figure ES-1. Industrial Discharges of Toxic Chemicals to Waterways by State
Table ES-1. Top 10 Waterways for Total Toxic Discharges
Waterway Toxic discharges (lb.)
OHIO RIVER (IL, IN, KY, OH, PA, WV) 31,064,643
NEW RIVER (NC, VA, WV) 14,090,633
MISSISSIPPI RIVER (AR, IA, IL, KY, LA, MN, MO, MS, TN, WI) 12,717,205
SAVANNAH RIVER (GA, SC) 7,683,500
DELAWARE RIVER (DE, NJ, PA) 7,449,555
CAPE FEAR RIVER (NC) 5,380,054
TRICOUNTY CANAL (NE) 5,256,876
MISSOURI RIVER (IA, KS, MO, ND, NE) 5,049,336
MUSKINGUM RIVER (OH) 4,994,243
SHONKA DITCH (NE) 4,375,761
The continued release of large volumes of toxic chemicals into the nation’s waterways shows that the nation needs to do more to reduce the threat posed by toxic chemicals to our environment and our health and to ensure that our waterways are fully protected against harmful pollution.
Industrial facilities dumped 232 million pounds of toxic chemicals into American waterways in 2007, according to the federal government’s Toxic Release Inventory.
• Toxic chemicals were discharged to more than 1,900 waterways in all 50 states. The Ohio River ranked first for toxic discharges in 2007, followed by the New River and the Mississippi River.
• Nitrate compounds— which can cause serious health problems in infants if found in drinking water and which contribute to oxygen-depleted “dead zones” in waterways – are by far the largest toxic releases in terms of overall volume.
Large amounts of toxic chemicals linked to serious health effects were released to America’s waterways in 2007.
• Industrial facilities discharged approximately 1.5 million pounds of chemicals linked to cancer to more than 1,300 waterways during 2007. The Ohio River received the greatest amount of cancer-causing chemical discharges, followed by the Catawba River in North and South Carolina and the Tennessee River. Pulp and paper mills, along with coal-fired power plants, were among the largest dischargers of cancer-causing chemicals.
• About 456,000 pounds of chemicals
Wasting Our Waterways
Figure ES-1. Industrial Discharges of Toxic Chemicals to Waterways by State
Table ES-1. Top 10 Waterways for Total Toxic Discharges
Waterway Toxic discharges (lb.)
OHIO RIVER (IL, IN, KY, OH, PA, WV) 31,064,643
NEW RIVER (NC, VA, WV) 14,090,633
MISSISSIPPI RIVER (AR, IA, IL, KY, LA, MN, MO, MS, TN, WI) 12,717,205
SAVANNAH RIVER (GA, SC) 7,683,500
DELAWARE RIVER (DE, NJ, PA) 7,449,555
CAPE FEAR RIVER (NC) 5,380,054
TRICOUNTY CANAL (NE) 5,256,876
MISSOURI RIVER (IA, KS, MO, ND, NE) 5,049,336
MUSKINGUM RIVER (OH) 4,994,243
SHONKA DITCH (NE) 4,375,761
Executive Summary
linked to developmental disorders were discharged into more than 1,200 waterways. The Alabama River led the way in discharges of developmental toxicants, followed by the Verdigris River in Kansas and Oklahoma and the Mississippi River.
• Approximately 266,000 pounds of chemicals linked to reproductive disorders were released to more than 1,150 waterways. The Ohio River received the most discharges of reproductive toxicants, followed by the Verdigris River and the Mississippi River.
• Discharges of persistent bioaccumulative toxics (including dioxin and mercury), organochlorines and phthalates are also widespread. Safer industrial practices can reduce or eliminate discharges of these and other dangerous substances to America’s waterways.
To protect the public and the environment from toxic releases, America should prevent pollution by requiring industries to reduce their use of toxic chemicals and restore and strengthen Clean Water Act protections for all of America’s waterways.
The United States should revise its strategy for regulating toxic chemicals to encourage the development and use of safer alternatives. Specifically, the nation should:
• Require chemical manufacturers to test all chemicals for their safety and submit the results of that testing to the government and the public.
• Regulate chemicals based on their intrinsic capacity to cause harm to the environment or health, rather than basing regulation on resource-intensive and flawed efforts to determine “safe” levels of exposure to those chemicals.
• Require industries to disclose the amount of toxic chemicals they use in their facilities – safeguarding local residents’ right to know about potential public health threats in their communities and creating incentives for industry to reduce its use of toxic chemicals.
• Require safer alternatives to toxic chemicals, where alternatives exist.
• Phase out the worst toxic chemicals.
The United States should restore Clean Water Act protections to all of America’s waterways and improve enforcement of the Clean Water Act.
• The federal government should clarify that the Clean Water Act applies to headwaters streams, intermittent waterways, isolated wetlands and other waterways for which jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act has been called into question as a result of recent court decisions.
• The EPA and the states should strengthen enforcement of the Clean Water Act by, among other things, ratcheting down permitted pollution levels from industrial facilities, ensuring that permits are renewed on time, and requiring mandatory minimum penalties for polluters in violation of the law.
• The EPA should eliminate loopholes —such as the allowance of “mixing zones” for persistent bioaccumulative toxic chemicals—that allow greater discharge of toxic chemicals into waterways.
• The EPA should issue strong limits on releases of toxic heavy metals from power plants.
Wasting Our Waterways
In June 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire. It wasn’t the first time the Cuyahoga burst into flames, but the 1969 fire came at a crucial moment—a time when Americans were finally beginning to pay serious attention to the impact of industrial pollution on the environment. The image of a major urban river on fire crystallized for many Americans the sense that our nation’s waterways—once sources of beauty and inspiration as well as critical resources for human communities and wildlife alike—had too long been used as dumping grounds for industry.
Americans resolved to reclaim their waterways, and just three years later, they scored a major victory when Congress adopted the federal Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act’s goals were unambiguous—industrial discharges to America’s waterways were not just to be reduced, but were to be eliminated in less than a generation, by 1985.
linked to developmental disorders were discharged into more than 1,200 waterways. The Alabama River led the way in discharges of developmental toxicants, followed by the Verdigris River in Kansas and Oklahoma and the Mississippi River.
• Approximately 266,000 pounds of chemicals linked to reproductive disorders were released to more than 1,150 waterways. The Ohio River received the most discharges of reproductive toxicants, followed by the Verdigris River and the Mississippi River.
• Discharges of persistent bioaccumulative toxics (including dioxin and mercury), organochlorines and phthalates are also widespread. Safer industrial practices can reduce or eliminate discharges of these and other dangerous substances to America’s waterways.
To protect the public and the environment from toxic releases, America should prevent pollution by requiring industries to reduce their use of toxic chemicals and restore and strengthen Clean Water Act protections for all of America’s waterways.
The United States should revise its strategy for regulating toxic chemicals to encourage the development and use of safer alternatives. Specifically, the nation should:
• Require chemical manufacturers to test all chemicals for their safety and submit the results of that testing to the government and the public.
• Regulate chemicals based on their intrinsic capacity to cause harm to the environment or health, rather than basing regulation on resource-intensive and flawed efforts to determine “safe” levels of exposure to those chemicals.
• Require industries to disclose the amount of toxic chemicals they use in their facilities – safeguarding local residents’ right to know about potential public health threats in their communities and creating incentives for industry to reduce its use of toxic chemicals.
• Require safer alternatives to toxic chemicals, where alternatives exist.
• Phase out the worst toxic chemicals.
The United States should restore Clean Water Act protections to all of America’s waterways and improve enforcement of the Clean Water Act.
• The federal government should clarify that the Clean Water Act applies to headwaters streams, intermittent waterways, isolated wetlands and other waterways for which jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act has been called into question as a result of recent court decisions.
• The EPA and the states should strengthen enforcement of the Clean Water Act by, among other things, ratcheting down permitted pollution levels from industrial facilities, ensuring that permits are renewed on time, and requiring mandatory minimum penalties for polluters in violation of the law.
• The EPA should eliminate loopholes —such as the allowance of “mixing zones” for persistent bioaccumulative toxic chemicals—that allow greater discharge of toxic chemicals into waterways.
• The EPA should issue strong limits on releases of toxic heavy metals from power plants.
Wasting Our Waterways
In June 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire. It wasn’t the first time the Cuyahoga burst into flames, but the 1969 fire came at a crucial moment—a time when Americans were finally beginning to pay serious attention to the impact of industrial pollution on the environment. The image of a major urban river on fire crystallized for many Americans the sense that our nation’s waterways—once sources of beauty and inspiration as well as critical resources for human communities and wildlife alike—had too long been used as dumping grounds for industry.
Americans resolved to reclaim their waterways, and just three years later, they scored a major victory when Congress adopted the federal Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act’s goals were unambiguous—industrial discharges to America’s waterways were not just to be reduced, but were to be eliminated in less than a generation, by 1985.
America’s oceans are home to whales, dolphins, sea turtles, fish and an enormous variety of other
sea life. But today our oceans are in trouble. Destructive overfishing, pollution, global warming
and habitat damage are putting important marine animals at risk. Many populations are in serious
decline. The result of this poor management is a drastic reduction in fishing opportunities for
commercial and recreational fishermen.
On the West Coast, about one in ten (9% or 5 out of 53) of all federally managed fish stocks for
which there is adequate information are overfished.1 The Pacific Fishery Management Council
(Pacific Council) is one of eight regional fishery management councils that cover U.S. coasts.
Together with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the Pacific Council is supposed to
determine how much of each type of fish can be caught on a sustainable basis and establish other
types of fishing rules.
sea life. But today our oceans are in trouble. Destructive overfishing, pollution, global warming
and habitat damage are putting important marine animals at risk. Many populations are in serious
decline. The result of this poor management is a drastic reduction in fishing opportunities for
commercial and recreational fishermen.
On the West Coast, about one in ten (9% or 5 out of 53) of all federally managed fish stocks for
which there is adequate information are overfished.1 The Pacific Fishery Management Council
(Pacific Council) is one of eight regional fishery management councils that cover U.S. coasts.
Together with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the Pacific Council is supposed to
determine how much of each type of fish can be caught on a sustainable basis and establish other
types of fishing rules.
America’s oceans are home to whales, dolphins, sea turtles, fish and an enormous variety of other sea life. But today our oceans are in trouble. Destructive overfishing, pollution, and habitat damage are putting important marine animals at risk. Many populations are in serious decline. The result of this poor management is a drastic reduction in fishing opportunities for commercial and recreational fishermen.
On the west coast, about one in seven (14% or 7 out of 49) of all federally managed fish stocks for which there is adequate information are overfished. Approximately one in twenty (6% or 3 out of 49) stocks are experiencing overfishing and headed in that direction.
Taken together, ten federally managed fish stocks are either depleted or experiencing overfishing. This represents 20% of the 49 fish stocks for which the federal government has enough information to make an assessment. In addition, another ecologically and economically valuable fish, Pacific whiting, is being driven down towards an overfished level with the help of poor decisions from the Pacific fishery management council.
‘Overfished’ typically means that a fish population has been reduced to below 20-25% of its original population. When eight out of ten fish of any kind are missing from the ocean, it has profoundly negative effects on the rest of the ocean’s animals like whales, dolphins, sea turtles and other fish. The ecosystem is unbalanced; predators may not find enough to eat and prey species may explode because there are not enough predators to eat them. ‘Overfishing’ means that a fish stock is being caught faster than it can replace itself and it is therefore heading towards overfished status or not recovering to healthy levels. Taken together these two terms describe fish stocks in jeopardy or threatened.
In an effort to improve fisheries management, Congress revised the primary law governing fishing in U.S. oceans, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, at the end of 2006. The Act requires the National Marine Fisheries Service and the regional fishery management councils, which devise and propose local plans that are supposed to maintain healthy fish populations, to follow new rules. These rules are now under development; and this report recommends that the new rules follow important conservation principles.
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