Culver City may enact a sweeping ban on products you might be using.

The Culver City Council discussed expanding its Waste Reduction Program to ban single-use plastic bags, single-use plastic bottles, cigarettes, and balloons in Culver City. If introduced as currently proposed, the sale of these bottles and balloons would be banned in the city, outdoor smoking would be made illegal, and stores would no longer be allowed to provide single-use plastic bags to customers.

These particular items still create significant waste despite efforts from cities to limit them, with cigarette butts and plastic beverage bottles making up almost 40 percent of the debris that is collected from waterways during Coastal Cleanup events, according to the non-profit Ballona Creek Renaissance.

The Culver City Council has been very proactive in reducing waste production within its borders, most recently enacting regulations mandating the use of reusable materials in the food service business in the city last year with help from the non-profit.

Ballona Creek Renaissance has been in Culver City focusing on cleaning and maintaining the Ballona Creek for 25 years. They have worked with the city’s Sustainability Subcommittee in prior years, proposing and helping push for bans on plastic bags in 2013 and several types of difficult-to-recycle plastic including polystyrene in 2017.

The city’s council members sans Göran Eriksson — who was not present to express his feelings on the proposals — said they were on board with the ban, though some did present concerns with how it is executed. For councilmember Freddie Puza, this action is part of an effort to correct decades of propaganda and capitalist influence. He explained how lobbies for the fossil fuel and plastic industries used their influence to shift the public blame on climate change from these companies that were producing single-use packaging to the individual and their habits.

He argues that personal lifestyle changes alone will not have the necessary impact on the production of waste and that bans will help combat the expanding production of plastic in the modern world. Puza cited a 2019 study that showed that U.S. adults consume an average of 50,000 microplastic particles annually and inhale the same amount, and a February study published in the journal “Environmental Pollution” found that a significant amount of these microplastics have even ended up in the protein we eat.

“This is about leadership, and policy has to come first because people will not do it on their own, unfortunately,” Puza said. “Policy change must be coupled with personal responsibility for substantial change to happen.”

Restrictions on plastic bags have been in effect in California since 2014, but this proposal would expand that ban to include plastic carry-out bags offered by stores. Studies showed that plastic bag waste increased by 47 percent to 462 million pounds in 2022, a glaring red flag indicating the state regulations in place are insufficient.

Bans on the sale and use of single-use plastic bottles have been enacted in smaller cities, with recent bans coming into effect in South Lake Tahoe and Truckee, CA. But perhaps the best case studies of these restrictions are at the state’s two busiest airports. Los Angeles International Airport enacted a ban on single-use bottle sales last June, and San Francisco International Airport has had one in place since June 2019.

As the owner of one of the longest-tenured family-owned businesses in the city at Sorrento’s Market, Councilmember Albert Vera explained that he discontinued the sale of single-use plastic bottles on his own several years ago, but also believes that outreach needs to be done to ensure the community was informed before significant decisions are made.

“If we could get the entire state behind this, it would be a wonderful world that we live in,” Vera said. “The more people we can bring along on the journey, the longer and more lasting these changes will be.”

Mayor Yasmine-Imani McMorrin also felt that city staff should reach out to nearby cities that have enacted similar bans to understand how these municipalities implemented these bans and the positive and negative impacts that they have had on those cities. She noted that this information could help address the concerns of those worried about this potential move.

“I think a lot of the comments had questions about implementation and logistics, which are natural questions to have on topics such as this,” McMorrin said.

One of the primary obstacles to getting such a ban approved is the objections of the business community. These concerns have been acknowledged through a process within these waste reduction ordinances that allow businesses to apply for exemptions but are not taken advantage of according to the ban’s supporters.

“To our knowledge, no business has applied for that waiver ever in any of these ordinances we have suggested to the city,” Ballona Creek Renaissance Vice President Sandrine Cassidy said at the meeting

Vera acknowledged that there are still many concerns about the potential ban despite the lack of exemption applications, evident by the speakers who expressed their concerns about the potential unintended consequences of these bans. Vera said he was willing to talk with other businesses about his experience phasing these products out of his sales model to try and alleviate these concerns.

The ban on balloon usage and sales is a more common practice than for bottles, with many beachside cities including Laguna Beach, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach all having balloon bans in place. On top of reducing waste, eliminating balloons from the city would help mitigate power outages and fires caused by balloons lost and adrift.

Councilmember Dan O’Brien supported the idea of eliminating the waste and issues caused by balloons that float away and brought up the alternative of a helium ban as a way to accomplish the same goal. He emphasized that he wanted at a minimum to ban balloons at city events like Fiesta La Ballona as well as parks, arguing the impact it has on the environment was worth trying to eliminate.

“Balloons and the strings attached to them really impact our marine life,” O’Brien said. “It makes sense that the leaders of these efforts are coastal cities.”

Only two other cities in the country have enacted blanket bans on tobacco smoking, both of which are in Southern California. Manhattan Beach and Beverly Hills both introduced a ban on the sale of commercial tobacco, with Beverly Hills also prohibiting smoking within 20 feet of open-air dining and the public right-of-way unless that person is actively moving along that right-of-way.

Manhattan Beach’s ban is more comprehensive, only allowing smoking in private residential properties that are not used as child care or senior care facilities. The current proposal in Culver City would expand the outdoor smoking prohibition, but a tobacco sales ban is not a guarantee if this motion moves forward.

Aside from the ban itself, the mechanism for enforcement was called into question, even with a reporting system being shown as part of the presentation to the city council on the proposals at Monday’s meeting. Still, O’Brien noted that some ordinances have been difficult to enforce, citing the prevalence of outdoor cannabis smoking as an example despite the city only allowing consumption privately.

“I play basketball at Vets Park on Saturday, and it’s everywhere,” he said of the cannabis smell. “No one is enforcing that; enforcement is a challenge with any of these things.”

McMorrin acknowledged these concerns but said that concerns over the potential enforcement gaps should not stop the city from moving forward with important work.

“It is really important to do what we can that is in our jurisdiction,” McMorrin said. “I know that enforcement is a deep concern, but the question of enforcement shouldn’t be a deterrent.”

No ban was instituted at the meeting, and the Sustainability Sub-Committee was tasked with focusing on gathering the necessary information and doing proper outreach associated with the potential bans.

Photo by the author.