Trashing plastics

California gets knocked for banning plastic bags, takeout containers and straws while avoiding the main problem: nonrecyclable plastics in all their various forms. A pair of bills aim to go wide-angle by reducing such waste over the next decade.

The near-identical bills, SB54 and AB1080, would curb single-use plastics by 75 percent by 2030. It’s an ambitious goal considering the mountain of throwaway material the state cranks out: 2.4 million tons of plastic packaging and products were taken to dumps in 2017.

Plastics are convenient and cheap, but they’re made of a nightmare material that essentially never degrades. While some water bottles can be recycled, most packing materials, containers and bags can’t be. Tossing the stuff into blue recycling bins doesn’t mean the items always get reused.

There are other serious problems. Plastic bits get into the environment and harm wildlife and the oceans. Exposure in some cases can lead to cancer and other health problems.

For years the leftovers were shipped to Asia, but nations there are rebelling, demanding

that shiploads of the detritus be returned as unusable. Just this week Malaysia said it planned to send 3,300 tons of smuggled plastic trash back to the countries of origin. China, a longtime recipient of discarded plastic, has shut its ports. It’s time for California to play its part and no longer dodge responsibility.

The Senate bill by Ben Allen, a Santa Monica Democrat, and the Assembly measure by Lorena Gonzalez, a San Diego Democrat, have made it through first-stop committees. The two plans would require a serious cut in use-and-toss plastics and oblige replacements that can be recycled. A long list of environmental and outdoor groups back the idea along with the Bay Area’s Recology waste-collection, recycling and composting firm.

Opposed for now is the American Chemistry Council, which wants clearer explanation on how the measures would be enforced.

There isn’t a legislative district in the state that isn’t littered with plastic along streets and roads. Garbage dumps can’t handle or compost the material. The two measures lay out a reasonable timetable in ridding the state of an ever-building problem.