The power of a killer fact
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a CALPIRG-supported bill that closes a loophole in the state’s landmark 2014 plastic bag ban.
California has taken another step toward a future free of plastic waste. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a CALPIRG-supported bill that closes a loophole in the state’s landmark 2014 plastic bag ban, which allowed grocery stores to provide customers with plastic bags so long as they are reusable or recyclable.
As the Los Angeles Times and New York Times report, CALPIRG Education Fund’s research reaffirmed what Californians’ eyes were likely already telling them: Just 2% of Californians we surveyed reused the thicker bags that grocery stores provide — bags that no California municipal recycling facility will even accept, according to the Los Angeles Times.
As a result, another report CALPIRG Education Fund authored with Environment America Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group found that plastic bag waste by weight reached an all-time high in California despite the statewide bag ban.
Sometimes, certain facts align with people’s intuitions in a way that compels them to act, as California’s leaders just did in banning plastic bags at grocery store checkout. PIRG’s success in steering public debates toward what’s best for our health, safety and well-being often rests on our ability to unearth and share these “killer facts.”
Here are two more of these facts from PIRG’s research on other emerging issues this summer:
The world already throws out electronics containing more of certain rare minerals each year than proposed strip mining of the central Pacific Ocean would supply in the next decade.
As the International Seabed Authority considers the first-ever commercial exploitation of the ocean floor for critical minerals, PIRG experts are working to frame the debate around this fact from We don’t need deep sea mining, our report with Environment America Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group.
Everyone already intuitively knows the irreparable damage that deep sea mining would do to the home of coral, sponges, anemones and other marine species living in an ecosystem that humankind is only just beginning to understand and explore.
Our finding suggests that world leaders can protect the deep sea by requiring that phones, tablets and other gadgets use fewer rare minerals, last longer and be optimized for repair and recycling — or, as Wired’s coverage of our report put it, “Instead of mining the deep sea, maybe people should just fix stuff.”
The equivalent of a car’s worth of metal could soon be entering our skies from space every hour.
Another new PIRG report, WasteX: Environmental harms of satellite internet mega-constellations, is raising awareness of a dramatic increase in the number of satellites due to be launched into space, blasting soot and other pollutants into our air on the way up and creating debris and still more pollution on the way down.
Again, everyone’s already familiar with the wisdom of the phrase “What goes up must come down,” not to mention “Look before you leap.” Our finding is meant to encourage the public and all stakeholders to stop and think about the magnitude of this latest space race’s unforeseen consequences.
The facts suggest that our government should pause low Earth orbit satellite launches until it conducts a comprehensive review — or, as The Register’s coverage of our report put it, “Before we put half a million broadband satellites in orbit, anyone want to consider environmental effects?”
—
Now that California has closed its plastic bag ban loophole for grocery stores, CALPIRG is building public support to expand that ban so that it covers take-out and dine-in establishments as well as other retail stores statewide. There and elsewhere, PIRG will keep letting the facts speak for themselves — and guiding us toward a healthier, safer and less wasteful world.
Thank you to Gov. Newsom and California legislators. Congratulations to CALPIRG Director Jenn Engstrom, Advocate Fiona Hines, and our partners working to move California beyond plastic.
Topics
Authors
Douglas H. Phelps
Chairman, U.S. PIRG; President, The Public Interest Network
Doug is President and Executive Director of The Public Interest Network. As director of MASSPIRG starting in 1979, he conceived and helped organize the Fund for the Public Interest, U.S. PIRG, National Environmental Law Center, Green Century Capital Management, Green Corps and Environment America, among other groups. Doug ran the public interest careers program at the Harvard Law School from 1976-1986. He is a graduate of Colorado State University and the Harvard Law School.