EIR for Ordinances to Ban Plastic Bags

About the Program

Category: County Resiliency (Best in Category)

Year: 2011

Single-use plastic carry-out bags have proven to have a significant and disproportionate negative impact on the environment; however, the plastics industry and bag manufacturers have effectively blocked Statewide legislation to address this issue, while systematically challenging local efforts to ban plastic bags under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), arguing that such bans may have intended negative environmental consequences. Los Angeles County Public Works Department (Public Works) set out to overcome this challenge by completing a comprehensive Environmental Impact Report (EIR). The scope of the EIR intentionally included the unincorporated territory of the County, and the potential impacts from the adoption of comparable ordinances by each of the 88 incorporated cities within the county. This provided an opportunity for the cities in Los Angeles County to use this EIR to comply with CEQA, should they adopt an ordinance similar to the County’s ordinance, without investing the tie and expense of a separate EIR.