Los Angeles County is now the largest government body to restrict single-use plastics in restaurants and other heavy plastic-using locations across the county.
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Los Angeles is breaking the mold and the hold plastic has on the food and service industries. County supervisors passed an ordinance last week to require compostable, recyclable or reusable materials in restaurants, stores and even farmer’s markets.
The LA City Council will also vote tomorrow on a plan to phase out single-use plastics from city facilities and city-sponsored events. CJ O’Brien, the plastics campaign associate at Oceana, an advocacy group dedicated to ocean conservation, weighed in on why she thinks these measures are vital.
CJ O’BRIEN: Plastic pollution is everywhere, and it’s a growing threat to our world’s oceans, to our heath and climate. And really, to combat this crisis, we need local, state, and national governments to pass policies that reduce the production and the use of unnecessary single-use plastic.
The ordinance applies to unincorporated areas of the county, where roughly 1 million people live. O’Brien noted that people who live in these areas, as well as in California at large are enthusiastic about reducing their plastic use with the help of government policies.
O’BRIEN: There is a lot of support from California voters. A recent Oceana poll actually found that 86% of California voters support local and state policies to reduce single-use plastic, but there’s still more to be done.
One thing she thinks could be done in addition to these new steps from the city and county of Los Angeles is to see action on a larger, national scale. She emphasized the pressing state of what she calls the “plastic crisis.”
O’BRIEN: Scientists have found plastic floating on the surface of the ocean, washing up in the world’s most remote coastlines, and now plastics found in our food, in our bodies, and plastic also comes from fossil fuels, which contributes to climate change at every stage of its lifecycle.
Even though O’Brien said her organization is looking for more proactive progress on larger scales to address plastic pollution and overuse, she said she is excited by the measures and is looking forward to seeing change at home in LA.