Plastic Bag Bill SB925
5-Cent Cost on Bags

Virginia Senate bill SB925 , proposed 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. As we have come to expect, it was passed by indefinitely in the Finance Committee, left dangling and distained like a bag caught on a branch.

Virginia House joint resolution HJ636 , proposed a study of the economic impacts of litter on fishing, farming, and water quality in urban streams, with the goal of producing data that will motivate action by the Commonwealth. This bill, too, was summarily rejected,tabled in the Rules Committee, tossed in the gutter to wash down the nearest stream.

Now is the time for all good persons to come to the aid of their watershed!
Support these bills like this each year as they face an uphill battle toward passage!

Find your Virginia legislators HERE, and let them know you support SB925 and HJ636.

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

The Friends of Accotink Creek support SB925, 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 SB925, imposing a five-cent cost on disposable plastic bags.

The Friends of Accotink Creek also support HJ636, to conduct a study the economic impacts of litter on fishing, farming, and water quality in urban streams. The data produced will inform ongoing efforts to control trash in the Commonwealth.

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 9, 2017

Let's get the bags out of Accotink Creek!