LA City Council supports California ballot measure to combat plastic pollution

The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to officially support a statewide ballot initiative to require the CalRecycle program to adopt and enforce provisions to reduce single-use plastic packaging and require producers to pay for plastic pollution cleanup and waste management.

“It’s estimated that by the year 2050 there will be more plastics in the ocean than there will be fish, and yet, year after year, every common sense measure that we try to get enacted through the California state Legislature or through Washington, D.C. is killed by the plastics industry, the petroleum industry, which continues to cram plastics down the throats of societies throughout the world,” Councilman Paul Krekorian said Tuesday.

Krekorian, along with Councilmen Mitch O’Farrell and Paul Koretz, introduced the resolution to support the ballot initiative, titled the California Recycling and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act. The resolution passed 14-0 Tuesday, with Koretz absent.

If passed by voters during the Nov. 8 election, the measure would also create a maximum one-cent per item fee on plastic packaging and foodware to be distributed to CalRecycle, the California Resources Agency and local governments.

“The only solution to plastic pollution is to put the responsibility for the impact of plastic where it belongs: on the producers of plastic. So once and for all we have the opportunity to do that by supporting this important ballot measure,” Krekorian added.

On Feb. 16, the council began steps for the city to phase out the purchase and use of single-use plastics in Los Angeles by having the Bureau of Sanitation work with other city departments on a report, which is expected to be complete by Earth Day, detailing steps to phase out single-use plastic.

That measure was also led by O’Farrell, Krekorian and Koretz.

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