"Talk is cheap when it comes to many environmental issues, but I fully expect the Clean Seas Coalition to put some real teeth into legislation that will protect all Californians from ocean litter. Local governments and public interest groups are really coming together to push for action at the state level.
Now is the time to act."
-Bill Magavern, Executive Director of Sierra Club California, September 10, 2008.

"Catch of the Day" provided by Surfrider Foundation. The Clean Seas Coalition is focusing on advocacy efforts to promote policy initiatives that will help protect our environment, including legislation to ban smoking on CA beaches (SB 4), and to reduce take-out food and beverage Polystyrene packaging.

• Lt. Governor Garamendi's Letter to Ocean Protection Council Chair Chrisman re: Marine Debris Report, August 21, 2008

• An Implementation Strategy for the California Ocean Protection Council Resolution to Reduce and Prevent Ocean Litter, July 24, 2008

• Ocean Protection Council's Resolution on Reducing and Preventing Marine Debris, February 8, 2007

• All of the bills below directly address the state's 2007 Marine Debris Resolution and the 2008 Implementation Strategy for Reduction of Ocean Litter.
• All of these bills are the TOP priority for their respective sponsors.
• Bill fact sheets and sample support letters are posted.
• Chek LegInfo link below for current status on individual bills.
  

To search all bills, go to: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/

General Marine Debris Fact Sheet

SB 4 (Oropeza/Surfrider) Smoking Ban on Beaches
This bill bans smoking on public beaches and parks statewide, as cigarette butts are a significant component of marine debris.

For more information, contact Angela Howe ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), Surfrider Foundation, www.surfrider.org.

SB 4 Fact Sheet

SB 4 Support List

Hold Your Butt Campaign

SB 21 (Simitian) Derelict Fishing Gear
For more information, contact:
Garry Brown ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), Orange County Coastkeeper, www.coastkeeper.org
Kristen Gilardi ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), SeaDoc Society, University of California-Davis, Wildlife Health Center, www.seadocsociety.org

Online Reporting: Derelict Fishing Gear Form -- www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu

SB 797 (Pavley/Environmental Working Group) BPA Ban
Rather than waiting years for the state's regulatory process under Green Chemistry, this bill would ban bisphenol-A (BPA), a known endocrine disruptor in baby bottles, sippy cups, formula cans and food jars. Emerging research indicates BPA is linked to a host of serious developmental and health problems, even in extremely low does. Canada has banned this chemical in baby bottles and has signaled its intention to regulate it in food containers. Currently, federal legislation and state bills in 18 other states are considering banning BPA. Many CA local municipalities have taken action including San Francisco, Chicago and Suffolk County in New York.

For more information, contact: Bill Allayaud ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), Environmental Working Group, www.ewg.org

The science on BPA is clear and compelling:

• BPA has been linked to a wide range of adverse health conditions, including breast and prostate cancer, infertility, obesity, and neurological and behavioral changes, including autism and hyperactivity.
• In 2007, a panel of 38 academic and government scientists convened by the U.S. National Institutes of Health concluded that there is "great cause for concern" about BPA's impacts to human health at everyday levels of exposure.
• In September 2008, the U.S. National Toxicology Program declared that it is concerned about the impact of BPA on the brain development, behavior, and the male reproductive system for infants and children.
• In October 2008, the FDA's Advisory Science Board found that the FDA safety assessment "overlooks a wide range of potentially serious findings" and demanded that the agency more carefully assess risks to children. Studies excluded from the FDA's consideration suggest BPA could pose harm to children at levels 10 times lower than what the agency allows.
• While 93% of the 220 university and government studies have shown adverse health effects from low doses of BPA, none of the 11 chemical-industry funded studies have shown an effect. Any notions of a conflict are purely the chemical industry's attempt to confuse the issue.
• Children are most at risk from BPA
• It will be many years before BPA will be addressed by CA's Green Chemistry Initiative
• Other states and countries have phased out BPA: Canada, Japan, and Minnesota have acted or are acting to phase out BPA from children's feeding products. The Connecticut legislature passed a bi-partisan bill - it is awaiting the Governor's signature. The federal government and 23 other states and municipalities have bills pending to restrict the use of BPA.
• Companies are shifting away from BPA: Manufacturers like Playtex and Heinz, and retailers like Wal-Mart and Safeway, have moved to take BPA out of their products and off their shelves.
• The nation's largest formula makers all sell products they market as BPA-free: All of Nestle's powdered formula is sold in BPA-free packaging. Similac and Enfamil package some of their powdered formula in BPA-free containers. Similac also sells liquid formula in bottles that are marketed as BPA-free. Passage of this legislation would not put them out of business, but rather remove the guessing game parents currently have to play when purchasing food for their infants.
• A proposed federal bill called the "Ban Poisonous Substances Act" is co-sponsored by Sen Feinstein and Rep. Markey. The bill will ban BPA not just from baby bottles but also food cans.

SB 797 Fact Sheet

The BPA ban is headed to the Assembly. Help get the critical votes.

List of Critical Assembly Votes and Contact Information

BPA EWG Alternatives fact sheet

SB 797 Myths and Facts

SB 797 One Page Alert

AB 68 (Brownley (Co-author Nava) /Heal the Bay) Single-Use Plastic Bag Fee
Modeled after successful bag fee bills in the EU and other countries, after July 1, 2011, this bill prohibits a store (defined to include supermarkets) from providing a single-use carryout bag - either paper or plastic ¬- unless the store charges a fee of not less than $0.25 per bag at checkout. Via the fees, the bill would generate local and state revenue for plastic bag pollution prevention and reduction.

For more information, contact: Sonia Diaz ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), Heal the Bay, www.healthebay.org

Support Letter for AB 68 (AB 68 has to pass out of Assembly Appropriations Committee by Jan 21st -- support is urgently needed!)

AB 68 Fact Sheet

AB 68 Support/Opposition List

Current Plastic Fees & Bans

AB 68 FAQ

General Support Letter for AB 68

AB 68 Support Letter

General Sign on to Oppose SB 531

General Sign on to Oppose AB 1141

AB 283 (Chesbro (Co-author Nava) /California Product Stewardship Council) Extended Producer Responsibility Act of 2010
The bill requires the Integrated Waste Management Board to administer a program to have producers of designated products be responsible for the life-cycle of their product, including waste disposal. Modeled after successful EU, Canadian and other international programs, this framework legislation sets some criteria for the CIWMB to consider when designating products and/or packaging to be considered for regulation, but doesn't specify products themselves. By shifting responsibility off of local governments and consumers, this bill encourage producers to research alternatives during the product design and packaging phases, in order to foster truly cradle-to-cradle producer responsibility.

For more information, contact: Heidi Sanborn ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), California Product Stewardship Council, www.calpsc.org

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a strategy to place the primary responsibility on producers to reduce a product's lifecycle impacts. EPR will incentivize business to manufacture and design products to be:

• more durable and repairable
• less toxic
• more recyclable (Dell batteries, for example, were redesigned after Dell took back its computers and subsequently learned how many screws it took to remove the batteries!)

EPR also reduces government administration and cost - e.g., British Columbia has only five government staff managing stewardship programs for eight product types-versus our CA CRV for bottles with hundreds of people. EPR is government light because industry runs it! They can contract with local government and use the existing municipal infrastructure. It also allows business to do what it does best - compete in a fair market place - which will bring competition to recycling systems and reduce costs.

For example, Austria does EPR with a fabulous recycling success rate of 85% (this includes the 1.37 million household serviced). Europe has successfully accomplished enough source reduction through EPR that packaging generation has "decoupled" from economic growth. While the rest of the world saw huge increases in plastic packaging, Europe saw a much slower packing growth trend under EPR.

EPR will save CA money, provide green jobs, and stimulate the economy. Austria's cost reduction over 15 years is 57%, and 6,000,000 ton savings of CO2

EPR will also protect public health if products like sharps and pharmaceuticals are covered.

EPR Fact Sheet

AB 283 Fact Sheet

Support Asm. Natural Resources Committee for AB 283

AB 283 Support Letter

AB 1358 (Hill (Co-author Nava) /Clean Water Action) Polystyrene Disposable Food Container Ban
Prohibits a food vendor from dispensing prepared food to a customer in a disposable polystyrene nonrecyclable plastic or nonrecycled paper container. Authorizes compostable plastic containers in a jurisdiction where organic waste is collected. Prohibits a state facility or vendor doing business with the state from using a polystyrene foam food service container at state facilities.

For more information, contact: Miriam Gordon ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), Clean Water Action.

AB 1358 Fact Sheet

AB 1358 Support Letter

AB 925 (Saldana/Faith 2 Green & Seventh Generation Advisors) Leash Your Lid: Plastic Beverage Container Caps
Like the pop-tops of aluminum cans of the ‘70's, this law would make plastic beverage bottle caps become part of CA's successful bottle recycling by requiring caps be attached to the bottle. Retailers would be prohibited from selling a single use plastic beverage container with a cap that is not attached to or part of the beverage container, and made from a recyclable material.

For more information, contact: Leslie Tamminen ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), Seventh Generation Advisors, www.seventhgenerationadvisors.org

AB 925 is a common sense approach to dangerous litter which decimates ordinarly long-lived large seabrird species. Moreover, AB 925 will allow California to make full use of the infrastructure created for its successful bottle recycling laws; after all, the bottle bill law is supposed to apply to the whole bottle!

Since 1989, the start of data collection for Coastal Cleanup Day, 1,044,414 bottle caps have been collected. Bottle caps are consistently among the top 5 items removed each year. The CA Dept of Conservation estimates between 35-50% of bottlecaps on bottles returned for recycling are missing (not counting the caps on millions of bottles that are not returned!).

The recycling community already recycles bottles with caps and the bottling community already produces bottles with caps that are tethered in some way.

This solution has a historical precedent: Like the pop-tops of aluminum cans of the 1970's, which used to be loose, but are now attached, this law is responsible resource recovery and economic sense to save the money being wasted on cleanup of trash.

The bottle cap bill is headed to the Senate floor despite opposition from all the big soda and water companies, and Anheuser-Busch. Help get the critical Senate votes. Call or send a letter (see sample) on your letterhead ASAP.

Senate Sample Support Letter

List of Critical Senate Votes and Contact Information

AB 925 August 2009 Fact Sheet

Capwoman Comes to the Capitol -- March 25, 2009  |  Garment of 2,000+ caps in support of AB 925

Come Support at Hearings