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PLASTIC POLICY UPDATES

A VICTORY, A GUIDE, & A LAWSUIT

Dear Surfrider Champions,

This week, I bring good tidings from our ongoing battle against single-use plastics. Let's start with a statewide victory!

I'm pleased to report that Governor Newson signed a Surfrider-sponsored bill, SB 1053, into law. This means that starting in 2026, grocery and convenience stores will no longer provide plastic bags at checkout. Should you forget to bring your own, they'll only be able to sell you a recycled paper bag. 

San Diego County Chapter activists lobbied extensively for SB 1053 at California Ocean Day and via private meetings with local state legislators. We also partnered with CALPIRG and the bill's author, Senator Catherine Blakespear, to host a rally at our August Moonlight Beach Cleanup.

Hundreds of you signed our statewide Action Alert, including over 200 who rallied in the final hour to urge Governor Newsom to sign the bill. Please accept our gratitude for all your efforts, large and small! 

Which brings me to my next tiding on the subject of plastic laws - our new state and countywide database.

We’ve created a new resource to guide you through what plastic laws apply where you live, including who to contact if those laws are being ignored. The resource includes every state and local plastic law in San Diego County.

Our chapter has led efforts to pass local plastic reduction laws for over a decade. With over 20 plastic ordinances across 9 San Diego cities, we’ve celebrated many victories too. It's a lot to keep track of, though. In order to ensure our hard-fought plastic laws are being followed, we need to understand them and where they apply. Now there's a resource for that. 

Coronado bears the notorious distinction of being San Diego's only coastal city without any policies to reduce single-use plastics. But that could change! Last week, the City Council directed staff to provide options for a potential plastics ordinance. They'll be looking at Carlsbad's ordinance for inspiration, which requires most disposable foodware to be compostable (i.e. not plastic). 

Thanks to many of you who heeded our Call to Action email, the City Council received approximately 65 emails in support of a plastics ordinance. Additionally, 12 people spoke in support of the city's efforts at the meeting - including our Rise Above Plastics (RAP) Committee leaders, Mark O'Connor and Janis Jones. We'd like to thank Coronado-based Emerald Keepers for leading the charge on this effort. We hope to see this item come back before the City Council by December. 

Meanwhile in La Mesa, the city is preparing a round of surveys to local businesses, then the community-at-large, regarding use  and opinions around single-use plastics. It's part of a community outreach effort that should eventually lead to a proposed ordinance that tackles single-use plastic foodware, polysytrene foam, plastic bags, and helium-filled balloons. 

We are looking to organize community outreach, including a film screening, in La Mesa starting early next year. Please email RAP@sandiego.surfrider.org if you're interested in helping out.

Lastly, Surfrider has taken the fight to the front door of the world's largest producer of plastic polymers, Exxon Mobil. The complaint, filed with several coalition partners, alleges that:

"Exxon fully knew and understood that its single-use plastic products could not be safely discarded, knew these products were causing serious harm, and yet engaged in a decades-long campaign to conceal these truths, while allowing the public to believe the opposite, thus significantly contributing to the deluge of plastic waste."

I encourage you to read the recent blog post with details about our complaint.

Thanks for reading this far! I'll conclude with a quick plug for our monthly Rise Above Plastics (RAP) Committee meetings, where you can meet like-minded people taking local action to reduce the flow of plastics into our environment. We work on policy, but also on fun resources like Plastic-Lite Bingo! The meetings occur every 3rd Tuesday at 6pm; you can sign up for the next one, along with all of our other volunteer opportunities, HERE. 

In Gratitude, 

Mitch Silverstein 

San Diego County Policy Manager 

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