Plastic Bags Landfill (Trash) Cart Plastic Bag Drop-Off or Landfill Cart When Napa’s local bag ban first took effect, Napa immediately saw a 50 percent decrease in plastic bag contamination in our recycling stream. According to Napa stores, the number of people using reusable bags has increased from 10 percent of shoppers to 60-90 percent of shoppers. The bag ban is easy and it’s working! Please never put your plastic bags/saran wrap/flimsy plastic into the recycling cart – it only belongs in the landfill cart or dropped off at a local plastic bag drop off site. Read about the City of Napa’s plastic bag ban on their website. Read more about the California statewide bag ban. Keep Separate From Hard Plastics Many plastic bags are labeled #2 or #4, but they are too thin to recycle with hard plastics and will get caught in recycling machinery. Find out how to dispose of plastic bags. Must Be Clean and Dry Only plastic bags that are clean and dry can be recycled. Empty your bag and wash out any sticky residues. Paper receipts, food traces or other materials can contaminate the recycling process. Ways to Reduce Reusable Bags Bring along a reusable tote to save plastic on your next trip to the grocery store. Some grocery stores will offer a small cash rebate when you bring in bags. Ways to Reuse Reuse Plastic Bags Reuse plastic bags as much as you can. You can use them to line small garbage bins around your home and keep an emergency stash in your car for the days you forget your reusable bags at home. Did You Know? The Impact of Plastic Pollution More than one million plastic bags are used per minute worldwide, and on a daily basis, over 10 metric tons of plastic from Los Angeles enters the Pacific Ocean each day. Ninety percent of trash floating in the ocean is from plastic that will take between five hundred and one thousand years to degrade. In the meantime, one million birds and 100,000 marine animals are killed each year because of plastic floating in the ocean. Plastic Bags Become Composite Lumber Check out this fun video from Vancouver, Washington about how plastic bags and films are recycled into products like composite lumber, which is often used to make decks.
