BY SUSANNE RUSTSTAFF Los Angeles Times (May 23)
Cheryl Auger was stunned this month when one of her Pasadena neighbors and friends received a flier in the mail featuring her state assemblyman, with a line stating, “Higher taxes on plastic products will enrich corporate interests with no guarantee of reducing plastic waste.”
Although she didn’t know it at the time, Auger’s friend was on the receiving end of a plastics industry campaign to pressure California state lawmakers into weakening proposed restrictions on single-use containers, which legislators are mulling in bill form and which could become a November ballot measure.
Related news: New Jersey’s single-use bag ban goes into effect
“What is surprising to me is a lack of culpability,” said Auger, a plastic waste activist.
The mailers, sent by a group calling itself the Environmental Solutions Coalition, assert without attribution that bans on single-use plastics “will have a devastating impact on working families” by driving up costs for consumers. Unmentioned in the mailings is that plastics manufacturers and other industries are financing the coalition.
The fliers are all aimed at Democrats, largely in Southern California, possibly an attempt to pressure them into derailing the November ballot measure by enacting watered-down legislation the industry can accept.
“I interpret it as a message, as a warning to members of the Legislature,” said Assembly Member Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), whose constituents received one of the mailers. “If that’s the intent, it’s backfired because it’s made us even more committed to trying to pass meaningful legislation to crack down on plastic pollution.”
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