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The Pacific Ocean is a part of California’s culture, from the surfing in San Diego to the boardwalk in Santa Monica, to the cliffs in Santa Cruz. When people think about California, they see beaches, the ocean, sea lions, and waves. We need to do everything we can to protect it, and the easiest thing we can do is ban plastic bags. They clog our shores and swirl in our ocean, killing millions of sea turtles and marine life every year.
California uses 12 billion plastic bags per year. All of this plastic not only clogs up our landfills, it’s also hurting the ocean. Right now there is an island of trash twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific. This floating trash island is full of plastic bags and other artificial debris. It kills millions of birds and marine animals like sea turtles every year. If we don't start cleaning up our act here in California, it will only keep growing.
Too much of this trash heap comes from things we don’t need, like plastic grocery bags. Nothing we use for a few minutes should be polluting the ocean for hundreds of years!
To a sea turtle, a plastic bag floating in the ocean looks a lot like dinner, a jellyfish to be precise. That's why the plastic bags that find their way into the Pacific pose an often-fatal risk to wildlife.
Of course, the companies that make and sell 11.9 billion bags are fighting to maintain the status quo, fronted by the lobbying team from the American Chemistry Council. But we need to do what is best for the Pacific Ocean and our future.
CALPIRG collected over fifty thousand public comments from students across the state and helped ban bags in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Santa Cruz, Davis and Santa Barbara. Then CALPIRG built support for a ban on plastic bags in California and defended that ban by helping to pass Prop 67 in California in Fall 2016.
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California uses 12 billion plastic bags per year and all of this plastic not only clogs up our landfills, but it also pollutes our oceans. Let’s ban the bag in California!
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CALPIRG holds a press conference on the quad in order to highlight the number of plastic bags that end up in our oceans - Let's Ban the Bag!
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The final shakedown: Plastic Bag Monster vs. Ninja Sea Turtle. Stop the continued pollution of our Pacific Ocean. Let’s Ban the Plastic Grocery Bag in San Diego County together.
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UCSD CALPIRG’s Protect Our Oceans Campaign. We want to stop the continued plastic pollution of our oceans. Join us!
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It's time to step up and protect our oceans by banning plastic bags!
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Play it safe, don’t pollute our beautiful beaches!
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The Oceans Campaign prepares for the Captain Earth-Plastic Bag Monster battle on campus to get petitions to ban plastic grocery bags in Los Angeles.
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Students on the Ocean campaign collect trash for the ‘What’s on Your Beach?’ event, while cleaning up the beach in the process.
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CSD students Sheng Jin and Alex Muselman duking it out in the Old Student Center during Oceans week.
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UC Davis CALPIRG Interns Justin Hassis and Manny Rin take a photo petition during the CALPIRG Alternative Spring Break Tour- gathering hundreds of petitions calling for a statewide ban on single use polystyrene containers and plastic bags
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CALPIRG students lined Centennial Walkway with hundreds of plastic bags, showing just how many bags the average person uses every year.
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Vice Chair Tony Beck dresses as a plastic bag monster for a Davis City Council meeting, encouraging them to ban plastic bangs in Davis.
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Vice chair Matt Gilliland and oceans campaign volunteer Jessica table alongside 3rd District County Board Supervisor Doreen Farr.
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Interns dress as ninja turtles and hold visibility battles on campus with a plastic bag monster.
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UCR, USC, and UCLA interns come together for a joint beach clean-up!
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A sample collected of the plastic pollution from the Eastern Garbage Patch of the North Pacific Gyre. Let’s protect our marine life and start by banning the single-use plastic grocery bag in San Diego.
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Oceans campaign intern, Jill Agonias, spreads awareness about plastic pollution.
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To cap off Fall quarter, UC Santa Barbara held a successful beach clean up with many CALPIRG interns and volunteers.
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UCSD CALPIRG volunteers table for the Oceans Campaign, collecting petitions to ban plastic bags in California!