A piece of plastic is a marked man with these eco-warriors around. (Chip Scheuer)
It’s impossible to sit in a room with Save Our Shores’ tiny staff and stay morose about the future of the planet. They’ve become expert at pulling kung fu moves against ocean pollution, using the pressure points of local laws to change widespread and damaging human behaviors. Just five people strong, they’ve managed to get Styrofoam banned in all but one coastal city between Santa Cruz and Carmel, installed 24 cigarette butt dispensers around the bay and mobilized 10,000 volunteers a year for weekly beach cleanups from Big Sur to Half Moon Bay.
This week another Save Our Shores effort comes to fruition. On Tuesday, Mar. 20, Santa Cruz County will become the first jurisdiction on Monterey Bay and the 13th in California to outlaw single-use plastic bags.
“We’re super stoked about this,” says Laura Kasa, the group’s executive director, seated at a table with three of her four staffers on an absurdly warm Friday. “It’s been two and a half years in the making.”
“Yay!” blurts out program director Emily Glanville.
“We’re hoping it’ll form a domino effect,” adds advocacy coordinator Lauren Dockendorf. “Monterey just passed a ban in November or December that will go into effect in June.”
Starting Tuesday, grocery stores, retailers and corner markets in Aptos, Live Oak, San Lorenzo Valley and other unincorporated parts of the county will hand over goods in paper sacks, charging customers who forgot their reusable bags a dime apiece (the fee climbs to 25 cents next year). The agreed-upon plan, says Kasa, is for each of the cities in Santa Cruz County—Capitola, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley and Watsonville—to follow suit and implement their own single-use bag bans in coming months. The city of Santa Cruz public works commission meets Mar. 19 to make its recommendation to the Santa Cruz City Council, which is expected to take up the issue Mar. 27. (The city will also be looking at banning the sale of all polystyrene—not just Styrofoam takeout containers.)
The ban has local momentum. In the city of Santa Cruz some 7,000 residents and 25 percent of UC–Santa Cruz students have signed a pro-ban petition. Glanville notes that SOS’s message resonates with people. “When you say to people, ‘Why would you choose to use something that’s basically going to be on this earth forever if you’re only going to use it for a few minutes?’ That simple tagline usually makes people reflect on what they’re doing.”
Kasa says the stores are behind the ban too. “Grocery stores are thrilled about this,” she says. “Safeway’s like, ‘No problem!’ They keep the 10 cents [from the paper bags].” Though, she adds, “We’re hoping they’ll spend it donating to beach cleanups.”
Still, no one at SOS expects the process to be easy for any of the cities. Unlike the ordinances outlawing Styrofoam, which met with little more in the way of opposition than grumbling restaurateurs unhappy about costlier takeout containers, many jurisdictions proposing bag bans have been sued or threatened with a lawsuit by the Save the Plastic Bags Coalition. That includes Santa Cruz County, which in January dropped a provision that would have included restaurant to-go bags in its ban—thus making it the toughest ban in the nation—in order to fend off a lawsuit.
“People were thinking, ‘Why is the county backing down?’” Kasa says. “I agreed at first: we want the restaurants! Those bags are just as bad. But the plaintiff could have dragged this out for years in any direction he wanted. So we decided the best thing was to take them out.”
Save the Plastic Bags Coalition’s attorney, Stephen Joseph, has already contacted the city of Capitola; in late February a spooked council responded by postponing its bag law, citing concerns about litigation. (Interestingly, Capitola’s Styrofoam ban now extends to retailers—you can’t buy a polystyrene cooler or cups in town anymore—and is the strictest in the nation.)
At this critical juncture, though—with the campaign to eliminate plastic bags around Monterey Bay just kicking off—Kasa says Save Our Shores finds itself scrambling for funding. The state cut all of its grant money, about $100,000, to the nonprofit this year, meaning the group is now looking to local individuals and businesses to keep up the advocacy and beach cleanup efforts. The California Challenge fundraising initiative has raised $10,000 so far according to the SOS website.
Volunteer coordinator Andrew Hoeksema says the victories create their own momentum among volunteers and supporters. “People see advocacy is effective,” he says. “Instead of sending a virtually anonymous letter to Sacramento, it’s very effective and very local, and if you’ve done that advocacy with Save Our Shores it’s now obvious that you’re on the winning team. And this is just one aspect. Can you use less plastic in the produce department? Can you—“ he catches himself and gestures toward the three slim aluminum bottles in front of his co-workers. “Look at the water bottles on this table.”
Everyone laughs at the mention of water bottles. “It’s gonna be next,” Kasa says. “It’s hysterical. We are not even done with this and I’m talking to county staff: ‘Well, should we go for it?’ We’re talking about banning the sale of plastic water bottles in the county.”
I ask if it would be the first law of its kind.
“Yeah!” says Kasa. “Right now in Santa Cruz at city-sanctioned events you can’t use water bottles, but this would go much further.
“We just feel like it’s the next right thing to do.”
On Tuesday, March 20, Save Our Shores will hand out hundreds of free reusable bags at the Safeway on 41st Avenue (noon–2pm) and at the Safeways in Aptos and Felton (4–6pm). Deluxe Foods in Aptos will give away 200 reusable grocery bags that day. The Safeway stores in Aptos, Soquel and Felton will each give away 100 bags/day for one week starting March 20.
