Editorial: California has a chance to lead the nation on cutting plastic trash. If we don’t blow it
The last few years have seen one distressing news story after another about the scourge of plastic waste: Single-use plastic packaging dumped in the ocean is killing sea animals who mistake it for food. Elephants in Sri Lanka are dying after ingesting plastic trash piled up in open-air landfills. Discarded bottles, bags and wrapping broken down into microplastic have invaded our food system and even our bloodstream. Microplastic is in the air we breathe and water we drink. … California however, is on the verge of taking the first substantial steps in the nation to reduce the flow of the harmful waste — if lawmakers don’t blow the chance.