The continuing effort to enact statewide bans in California on single-use plastic carryout bags and expanded polystyrene takeout food containers has once again failed to gather enough support in the legislature.
The California legislature ended its session Aug. 31 with no vote in the Assembly on the proposed ban on PS containers, and without a Senate vote on a proposed plastic bag ban. That's the fourth straight year that a PS ban has failed and the sixth straight year that a plastic bag ban has failed.
However, state legislators did extend the mandated state plastic bag recycling program until 2020.
The absence of statewide legislation has led 41 California cities and seven counties to bag plastic bag bans. Those communities cover geographic areas that represent 16 percent of the state's population, according to Californians Against Waste.
In addition, 65 California communities now have bans on expanded PS takeout containers.
Nationwide, the number of communities in the U.S. with plastic bag bans now total 82, including Homer, Alaska, which enacted a ban on single-use plastic bags Aug. 27 that will go into effect Jan. 1, 2013.