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Dear Board of Supervisors,

The management and employees of Earthwise Bag Company Inc would like to congratulate you and commend you for your recent decision to ban single use plastic bags in LA County. We are confident that your bold decision will certainly help to encourage other cities & counties around the country to move in this direction to help in protecting our environment and reduce the enormous cost of cleaning up these bags.

We also want to bring to your attention that at the hearing last week Mr. Stephen Joseph, council for SaveThePlasticBag.com held up a green reusable bag during his presentation against the measure and stated that “this bag made for LA County has lead in it”. Earthwise made and supplied that bag to LA County earlier this year and we are pleased to report that the lead content in this bag was way below the federal standard laid down by the Consumer products safety commission and in fact is even lower than the 100ppm that will be required by August 2011.
I have attached a copy of the test done by Bureau Veritas an independent and internationally recognized lab for your information.

Should you require any further information about reusable bags please do not hesitate to contact us. We thank you again for your public service and hope we can be helpful in the future to LA county in helping to inform the public about the benefits of using reusable shopping bags.

Yours sincerely

Stanley Joffe
President
earthwise bag company, inc.
2819 Burton Avenue
Burbank, Ca 91504
p. 818.847.2174
f. 818.847.9681
Choose to Reuse™

Lead Test Report

There are two things wrong with the plastic bag ban imposed this week by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. One is that charging a small fee for carryout plastic bags is a better solution than a ban. Fees have hugely reduced the use of the bags in countries that charge them while offering an option to consumers. The other problem is that a patchwork of municipal laws is confusing to consumers and inefficient for large chain stores.

Yet for both wrongs, the blame belongs not with the supervisors but with the Legislature, which pushed municipalities into this situation by passing one law that prohibited them from imposing fees on plastic bags until 2013, and rejecting another law that would have addressed this source of pollution on a statewide level.

Given the Legislature’s bumbling and the continued damage caused by carryout bags, the board did the best thing it could. If more large municipalities follow its lead — particularly the city of Los Angeles — the grocery industry, which supports a statewide solution, might join in prodding the Legislature into action.

One way or another, California should follow the lead of the more than 30 countries — and many more local governments — that have acted against plastic bags, a list diverse enough to include Papua New Guinea, France, Botswana and China. People in these countries appear to be getting along just fine without the bags, which choke waterways, contribute to urban and wilderness litter, are the second-most-common source of trash on California’s beaches and a key ingredient in the giant patches of plastic debris that are polluting the oceans. California’s consumers need to understand that plastic bags are not as “free” as they seem; the cost is rolled into the price of the goods they buy. What’s more, the state’s taxpayers pay close to $25 million a year to rid streets, beaches, parks and waterways of the bags.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich’s objection to the county ban — that poor people won’t be able to afford to pick up after their pets if they don’t receive plastic bags from stores — is off base. Only carryout bags, which are responsible for most of the plastic bag trash, would be banned. The smaller bags in which people put their produce, and in which this newspaper is delivered, tend to be disposed of properly in recycling or trash bins and are not affected by the ban.

The state tried beefing up recycling efforts for carryout plastic bags. It didn’t work. Californians use more than 120,000 tons of the bags each year, and recycle 5% of them. Now the Legislature needs to take stronger action, through either a statewide fee or a statewide ban, to put an end to the growing patchwork of local regulations.
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

Shop & Save says no issues with their Earthwise reusable bags

A spokesperson for Shop ‘n Save said that “no problems have been identified with the reusable bags sold in SHOP ‘N SAVE stores. We have verified with our primary bag supplier, Earthwise, that our bags have passed independent testing for lead content. Additionally, we are closely monitoring this issue and are actively communicating with each of our vendor partners to ensure the safety of our bags going forward.”

Original article found on LA Times website

Enacting one of the nation’s most aggressive environmental measures, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to ban plastic grocery bags in unincorporated areas of the county.

The vote was 3-1, supported by Supervisors Gloria Molina, Mark Ridley-Thomas, and Zev Yaroslavsky, and opposed by Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich. Supervisor Don Knabe was absent.

The ban, which will cover nearly 1.1 million residents countywide, is to the point: “No store shall provide to any customer a plastic carryout bag.” An exception would be made for plastic bags that are used to hold fruit, vegetables or raw meat in order to prevent contamination with other grocery items.

If grocers choose to offer paper bags, they must sell them for 10 cents each, according to the ordinance. The revenue will be retained by the stores to purchase the paper bags and educate customers about the law.

“Plastic bags are a pollutant. They pollute the urban landscape. They are what we call in our county urban tumbleweed,” Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said.

Mark Gold, president of the Santa Monica environmental group Heal the Bay, said previous county efforts to promote recycling of plastic bags at grocery stores was a failure.

“You cannot recycle your way out of the plastic bag problem,” Gold said. “The cost of convenience can no longer be at the expense of the environment.”

The measure is a significant win for environmental groups, which suffered a major defeat in Sacramento at the end of August with the failure of the state Senate to pass a sweeping plastic bag ban that won the support of the state Assembly and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger amid heavy and costly lobbying by plastic bag manufacturers.

But the ban could cause confusion. The action by the Board of Supervisors only covers the unincorporated areas of L.A. County, covering some neighborhoods like Altadena, Valencia and Rowland Heights, but doesn’t cover 88 cities in L.A. County. City councils could adopt a similar ordinance.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich raised the prospect that small mom-and-pop shops could suffer financially because they won’t be able to buy paper and reusable bags in great volume, and could force low-income people to buy bags to pick up pet waste or carry their lunch.

“At a time of economic uncertainty, with a large number of businesses leaving our state and community this would not be an appropriate time … to impose this additional regulation,” Antonovich said.

Opponents of the ban told the supervisors that a legal challenge to the ban is still a possibility.

With the Tuesday vote, L.A. County’s measure is more stringent than similar bans adopted elsewhere in California, Gold said.

San Francisco’s ban, which passed three years ago, is less restrictive because it still permits grocers to offer bioplastic bags made from corn starch, which are imperfect because they also do not degrade in the ocean, Gold said. Bans in San Francisco and Malibu also do not add a surcharge on paper bags, Gold said, which does not give consumers an incentive to switch to reusable cloth bags.

Washington, D.C., decided to tackle the issue not with a ban on any kind of bag, but a 5-cent surcharge per any item of disposable bag.

Gold, however, said an outright ban will be more effective on reducing the 6 billion plastic bags that are used in L.A. County every year, which according to the county, account for 25% of the litter picked up here.

Government figures show that just 5% of plastic bags are recycled.
Last week, the American Chemistry Council, one of the chief opponents of the ban, warned L.A. County leaders that the proposed ordinance and fee on paper bags fall under the voting requirements of Proposition 26. The initiative, which passed this month, reclassifies most regulatory fees on industry as “taxes” requiring a two-thirds vote in government bodies or in public referendums, rather than a simple majority.

County Counsel Andrea Ordin said Tuesday that the 10-cent surcharge on paper bags is not a fee covered by Prop. 26 because the revenue is being kept by the grocers and not directed to a government agency.

A single plastic bag can take up to 1000 years to photo degrade on land and up to 450 years in the water. They never truly degrade but instead break down into smaller particles that leach chemicals into the water and soil as well as absorb toxic chemicals.

Between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year with less than 1% ever being recycled.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. alone uses 100 Billion plastic bags annually, which is the energy equivalent of 12 Million barrels of oil and has an estimated cost to retailers of $4 billion. This cost is passed on to the consumer.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that more than 4 million tons of plastic bags, sacks, and wraps were reported to be generated in the U.S. municipal solid waste stream in 2007 alone. (US EPA, 2007)
Retail bags cause equipment and operational problems at recycling facilities, landfills and waste transfer stations. The machinery on trucks and separators is frequently impaired because plastic bags wrap around wheels, gears and other parts of the equipment, forcing work to stop while someone extracts the plastic and restarts the process. This daily occurrence causes worker injuries as well. (FDEP Bag Report 2010)
Plastic bags are light and hard to contain. Because of their light weight, plastic bags fly easily in wind, float along readily in the currents of rivers and oceans, get tangled up in trees, fences, poles, and block the drainage. Some waste management professionals consider plastic retail bags to be the number one “fly away” issue at landfills. Litter flying off landfills angers nearby residents, requires extra work to pick up and return the escaped trash, and may require additional daily landfill cover. (FDEP 2010)
The bulk of these bags end up in our landfills and our oceans, killing hundreds of thousands of birds, turtles, whales, and other wildlife who mistake them for food. Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to the nonprofit Center for Marine Conservation.

But plastic bags are not just deadly for our ocean wildlife. In India, plastic bag regulations were enacted to protect cows since they were attracted to the bags by the food once found inside and would eat the entire bag. As more cows died, with stomachs full of plastic bags, measures had to be taken. (FDEP 2010)
Scavenger birds and animals at landfills are also injured or killed. Scavengers and birds of prey go after rodents who become entangled in the bags and end up digesting large amounts of the plastic. (Molina & Garrett, 1998) Deer, raccoons, possums, bears and other garbage and landfill scavengers have also been found with retail bags within their guts. (FDEP 2010)
Plastic starts as large amounts of very small, spherical pellets called “nurdles.” These pellets are small and lightweight, making them highly mobile. During the manufacturing of plastic bags small plastic particulates are released and escape from the manufacturing plant and degrade in the environment.
As nurdles hit waterways they break down into smaller and smaller plastic balls resembling oceanic food items, like fish eggs. One study performed on seabirds showed that 55% of bird species studied had ingested plastic particles. (Lee & Moser 1992) It is unknown at this time if birds absorb chemicals from these nurdles into their bodies but it is believed that this pollution does affect the entire food chain.
Plastic bags are made from natural gas or petroleum with many other chemicals involved. As bags degrade, some of these chemicals are released into the water or atmosphere. In addition, the nurdles have actually been found to absorb and become a transport medium for toxic chemicals, including PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) and DDE (Dischlorodiphenyldichloroethylene, a DDT breakdown product). (FDEP 2010, Mato, Isobe, Takada, Kanehiro, Ohtake, &Kaminuma, 2001)
Earthwise has been on the forefront of the fight against plastic bags since 2005, making it our life’s work to mitigate the need for them and provide eco-friendly alternatives. One reusable shopping bag can replace thousands of plastic bags over the course of its lifetime. Most of Earthwise bags are recyclable as No. 5 and our new Tyvek® bags are curbside and in-store recyclable as a No 2. We even offer bags made with 100% recycled plastic bottles (rPET).If you want to avoid plastic altogether, we have cotton and organic cotton totes as well. Providing sustainable options is our business.
Want to learn more, check out our news page for links to articles, photos, and video footage. Want to get involved? Our community page provides links to a number of great organizations.

The significant impact of plastic bags on the environment has gained worldwide attention. Single-use bags are banned in Vancouver, Manitoba, Rwanda, France, Tanzania and Bangladesh. Washington D.C. has a law in place to reduce plastic bag usage which has shown great success. There are dozens of other countries and at least 29 U.S. states with legislation addressing this problem. San Francisco banned single-use plastic bags and the result has been a 50% decrease in plastic bag litter on the streets. A report by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection concluded that the environmental impact of plastic bags was severe and urged the legislature to “discourage the use of single-use paper and plastic retail bags.”

During the production of plastic bags, pellets called “nurdles” are released. Nurdles are small bits of plastic that are highly mobile and are ultimately washed into storm drains or sewers. In addition, when plastic bag litter reaches waterways, the bags degrade into small plastic balls that resemble oceanic food items. Ingestion of large quantities of these plastic particles or nurdles, as well as the plastic bag litter itself, can cause lethal gut obstructions in wildlife.

Plastic bags are made from natural gas or petroleum, and when they break down, chemicals are released into the water and atmosphere. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection Report states, “It is likely the degradation of plastic bags releases greenhouses gases,” though the amount is currently unknown. The particles and nurdles also absorb toxic chemicals including PCB and DDE, a DDT breakdown product. Finally, the actual litter generated by these lightweight plastic bag pollutants clogs storm water pipes and retention ponds and creates urban debris along our landscape. The North Pacific garbage patch, with estimates ranging between the size of Texas and twice the size of the U.S., is a prime example of plastic pollution causing catastrophic impacts on our environment.

The previous is a revised excerptfrom an LA Times OpEd written by Stan Joffe and Jeanine Harris, Earthwise Bag Company.
For the full article click the link below:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-joffe-plasticbag-20100710,0,1664967.story

For the third year running, Earthwise Bag Company is proud to sponsor Friends of the LA River (FoLAR) and their Annual River Clean-Up. At this year’s education and media day, Earthwise with Albertson’s and DuPont™ joined forces with FedEx, The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Warner Bros., to help raise awareness and volunteer our time as hundreds of school children volunteered theirs to help remove plastic bags and other debris from the Los Angeles River Basin.

The Veggie Bed™ Produce System is highlighted in this how-to video, which shows how easy it is to go green in the produce department. See how this revolutionary new system can change the way you shop while cutting down the use of single use plastic bags.

Stan Joffe, President of Earthwise Bag Company, and Jeanine Harris publish an OpEd piece in the LA Times in support of a ban on single-use plastic bags in California. AB 1998, the bill to ban certain plastic bags, is an environmental battlefront and Earthwise takes a leadership role in this rebuttal piece helping to push the bill forwards.