The California Secretary of State’s office announced in February 2015 that they have validated enough signatures to put the bag bill on the 2016 November ballot for a public vote.
Last year, the California legislature and Governor Brown approved SB 270, the statewide checkout bag bill. SB 270 is written to ban plastic checkout bags at most food retailers while requiring a ten-cent fee on paper bags as the incentive to remember reusable bags.
After approval of SB 270, the plastic bag industry paid people to collect signatures to have a public vote on the 2016 ballot through the referendum process. We expect the plastic bag industry will spend millions of dollars on misleading ads leading up to the election.
While this suspends implementation of SB 270, there is hope in 2016! We will need your grassroots help to beat the well-funded campaign to repeal the bill.
A majority of Californians already support a bag bill according to a recent study by USC. There are over 100 bag ban ordinances throughout the state that will continue to be in effect and municipalities are permitted to pass more.
We need you to keep the conversation going that plastic bags are harmful to wildlife and an eyesore for many communities while there is an easy solution with reusable bags.