I am student at Malibu High School, and I think it is absolutely wonderful that the Malibu City Council approved the plastic bag ban. Ever since I was a little kid I have loved going to the beach and surfing, but at the same time it would pain me to see trash, including plastic bags, floating around me. Sometimes I would even mistake those plastic bags for jellyfish and I would try to avoid them, and when I would realize that they were in fact bags it would surprise me. I later learned that turtles as well as other marine life do the same exact thing. They see a plastic bag, think it is a jellyfish, which just happens to be their favorite thing to eat, and they eat it. The turtle swims away satisfied, thinking they are full when in fact they are actually still hungry so they starve to death. I know that banning plastic bags may be an inconvenience for some people, but in retrospect they are just being selfish because there are so many other environmentally friendly replacements such as biodegradable “kitty litter duty” bags. Also, despite Malibu’s small size, we have to start somewhere, right? And if I do recall, Santa Monica and Oxnard are doing the same thing, and they are significantly larger than Malibu. My fellow students and I will have to deal with everything that our parents’ generation handed over to us, and since Malibu City Council did something that will benefit us greatly I give them kudos. We should set the example for future generations to come.
Erin Barlow