The Sacramento Bee has an article that asks an important question: What to do with 19 billion plastic bags? It’s not a rhetorical question. That’s how many of the ubiquitous carrying sacks Californians collect from their shopping habits every year.

Some of us try to find creative ways to reuse the lightweight pouches before they finally head into the garbage can. Others simply toss them away as soon as the groceries are unloaded. Recycling this resource as we recycle glass beer bottles or plastic milk jugs is too difficult. Too few retailers have made it easy to return the bags to a visible recycling location.

That may well have changed, thanks to a new state law that took effect at the beginning of this month. This law may mark the beginning of a new effort to recycle more and more plastic items or encourage the industry to find other materials that are easier on the planet than something that comes from oil.

The new plastic bag recycling initiative comes from Democratic Assemblyman Lloyd Levine of Van Nuys. His legislation, Assembly Bill 2449, set up a plastic bag recycling program at most grocers and other large retail outlets. The stores must now have a recycling bin for the plastic bags in some prominent, visible location. This kind of legislation should be commonplace in a nation with so much shopping. Sadly, AB 2449 is the first of its kind in the country. And it took some worrisome compromises to get it enacted.

In California, cities frequently take the lead when it comes to pushing for more recycling. In this case, AB 2449 prohibits a city from going after plastic bags by assessing a fee on their use. Consumers will get no refunds back for returning all their plastic bags. Nor will they have to pay a small recycling fee when a retailer uses these bags.

These were the prices that Levine had to pay in order to get the bill through the Legislature and signed by the governor. This is incremental progress, but progress nonetheless.

California has been resting on its laurels for too long on the recycling front. Back in 1989, a state senator from Palo Alto named Byron Sher pushed through legislation that required local governments to reduce the waste at landfills by 50 percent. This was a very ambitious goal, yet it resulted in the kinds of recycling (bottles, cans, yard waste) that Californians now take for granted.

This goal was achieved without much recycling of plastics. AB 2449 is a small step toward setting another goal of equal ambition: finding ways to shop that aren’t so taxing on the planet. Get ready to look for those recycling bins in the retail establishments and keep an eye on that mound of plastic bags that is bulging in the pantry. Its days should be numbered.

California should learn a lesson from Ireland which taxed plastic bags 15 cents and cut usage within one year. The Irish aren’t really shopping less, they are just carrying reusable bags with them, that’s all.

And reusable bags aren’t expensive at all as can be seen at www.badlani.com/bags and they can be really stunning to look at in addition to being probably the most cost effective advertising and promotional medium in the world!

Stumble it!