Plastic Bag Bill SB114
5-Cent Cost on Bags

LATEST UPDATE: The Virginia Senate Finance Committee "indefinitely passed by" SB114, sending it to a quiet death, like every year, tossed out like trash and washing in tatters down a Richmond storm drain. Although it is gone, it need not be forgotten. Anytime is the right time to let your state legislators know you support similar bills.
- February 8, 2016

Lend your voice in support of this year's effort to reduce plastic bag trash in Virginia!

Virginia Senate bill SB114 , proposes a 5-cent cost to disposable plastic bags (with exceptions for meat, drugs, etc.), with the goal of reducing the plague of plastic trash afflicting our environment.

Now is the time for all good persons to come to the aid of their watershed!
Support this bill as it faces an uphill battle toward passage!

Find your Virginia legislators HERE, and let them know you support SB114.

Some text you can use as a model. Modify or personalize as appropriate:

The Friends of Accotink Creek support SB114, to control the sale of disposable plastic bags. We strongly endorse and support efforts like this one to reduce trash in local watersheds. As a Virginia legislator, we encourage you to support the work of your many constituents who participate in our stream cleanups, by voting for SB114, imposing a five-cent cost on disposable plastic bags.

Each year Friends of Accotink Creek and other civic groups mobilize volunteers who clean tons of plastic bags and containers, as well as trash and debris including tires and metal, from streams that feed into the Chesapeake Bay. Across the United States, millions of tons of plastic waste is dumped into waterways, fouling waters for both marine life and human usage.

Reducing consumer consumption of plastic bags, by means of bans, restrictions, and/or taxes, is an effective way to reduce the amount of plastic trash that enters our watersheds, and flows downstream to the Potomac River, the Chesapeake Bay, and eventually out to the Atlantic Ocean to join the Great North Atlantic Garbage Patch, strangling marine life along the way, and breaking down into toxic particles that bioaccumulate in plankton and fish, traveling back up the food chain into the fish that we eat.

- January 21, 2016

Let's get the bags out of Accotink Creek!