Stop the purchase of single use plastic bags in Florida!
Encourage Elected Officials to Support Florida House Bill 661 & Senate Bill 966!
“The No. 1 thing we find on our beaches is plastics,” said Holly Parker, Florida’s regional manager for the Surfrider Foundation, an environmental nonprofit. “There are a lot of plastic bags. ... They aren’t biodegradable, they break down into smaller pieces and enter the food chain. They enter us.”
The one time single use of plastic bags is detrimental to our environment, wildlife, ocean and, therefore, ourselves. According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. If we can encourage shoppers to buy reusable bags, we can protect the environment, reduce waste, as well as protect the animals of the ocean. Florida has a very delicate ecosystem that is in danger without our help and cooperation to stop ocean pollution.
Presently, cities are prohibited from regulating plastic bags. House Bill 661 and Senate Bill 966 will allow cities with under 100,000 in population to pass ordinances which will put them into a pilot program to regulate plastic bags. The pilot program runs for three years, after which, communities will be given the option to keep their bag ban in place.
Florida is a major United States peninsula reaching out into our precious oceans like a giant arm throwing trash daily into our waters, unless we take a stand to Stop Ocean Pollution!
