San Luis Obispo -- Central Coast shoppers in one county will have to start bringing their own bags or paying for them starting Monday. The San Luis Obispo County Integrated Waste Management Authority Board approved an ordinance that bans single-use plastic bags in most stores back in January. Stores including supermarkets, pharmacies, convenience stores, and big-box stores cannot provide plastic shopping bags to customers. They can provide paper bags, but customer will have to pay at least 10 cents each. Customers can bring any type of bag with them to re-use including old plastic bags.
Californians use an estimated 19-billion plastic bags a year. San Luis Obispo County Waste Management says about 130-million plastic bags are used each year in the county and only about 3-percent of bags are recycled statewide. The ban is an effort by the county to meet a state mandate to reduce the amount of waste going into the landfill by 75-percent by the year 2020.
The county joins others in the state including Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, and Los Angeles counties also have bag bans. In fact about 50 cities and counties in the state now have bag bans.
A group called Save The Plastic Bag is suing to stop the bag ban.
