BIG Green California News

I have taken so many photos of plastic bag offenses at the famers market that I have stopped taking photos of them; top of my disgust list is this dumb tree cart, to carry your plastic bags; how about hanging a bunch of net bags off of this instead of single use plastic bags? Here is a shot from Brentwood market: how many filled plastic bags can you stuff in a plastic box?

And that dammned tree again, in Brentwood; you don't see this in Palisades, which is a few miles away. The space is different, not so open, but The Chic don't carry this kind of gear, sorry!

Is it not enough to have a wire cart, you have to line it with a black plastic trash bag??? And then fill it up with lots of other little plastic bags? Calabasas:

Last weekend in Palisades; this makes me go UGH!
Why wouldn't you want to drag this behind you, like a French shopper?~~

OK it will cost you more money to have this cart, but do you have to have all the plastic?

This week the Master Envinonmental Assessment was released; it was started by the State of CA then the State pulled the funding for it due to the budget crisis. It was then privately funded by a group including the Cities of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Palo Alto, San Clemente, Pasadena, San Francisco and Richmond....and....yours truly, and also a few other groups like Surfrider San Diego Chapter. The push to have the MEA completed was headed by a coalition of cities, called Green Cities California, under the fantastic coordination of Carol Misseldine from the City of Mill Valley.

The MEA is the blueprint for cities across CA to ban plastic bags. If you are a city in California you must complete an environmental impact report ("prove" why plastic bags are bad for the environment) or else be sued by the plastic bag industry. Preparation of this report can be an expensive prospect for most small cities, but the MEA will now allow any city in California to lift about 85% of the impact report directly from the MEA.

More tomorrow; this is a shot across the bow; we will not have plastic in our markets and stores for long....

this morning I stopped to get bagels at Shirley's in Laguna; of course I would bring a basket instead asking for a bag; more later this week on bringing your own bag.....