Jubilant advocates for the environment today are celebrating an historic – and anticipated – victory.
The headline is that the City Council voted unanimously last evening to phase in — over the next six months — a ban on polystyrene on the grounds it damages the environment as it s-l-ow-l-y distintegrates. It is said to take 500 years to fully disintegrate.
The more rounded story: Propelled by a campaign ignited last summer by worried, frustrated leaders of the Ballona Creek Renaissance, environmentalists, who packed Council Chambers to overflow, swept the boards.
BCR started a fast-gathering community firestorm when they came before the Council to complain that multi-sized pieces of polystyrene and its family members were fouling the environment as careless visitors dropped their food containers near and in two main waterways, Ballona Creek and the ocean.
The Culver City-based Ballona Creek Renaissance (www.ballonacreek.org) group is a non-profit whose stated purpose is to improve Ballona Creek and the community’s use of it in five ways:
- Water quality
- Ecosystems
- Recreation
- Education
- Attractiveness and amenities
By midnight, Culver City’s political leaders were waving bye-bye to nearly every member of the polystyrene family through a variety of rulings.
By July, all community businesses will be forbidden to use expanded Styrofoam, the kind commonly utilized as ice containers.
On another occasion, cheers and boos would have greeted the Council’s vote to add red-light cameras at three intersections, Washington Boulevard at Overland Avenue, Washington at Sepulveda Boulevard and Washington at National Boulevard. They also closed three red-light camera approaches: Washington Place-Centinela, Washington Boulevard-Sawtelle and Washington Boulevard-Helms.
Back to the heavyweight news.
Environmentalists owe a significant debt to Coty Councilman Göran Eriksson.
As a ubiquitous, endlessly probing detective for the Council’s Sustainability Subcommittee the past several months, Mr. Eriksson largely was the architect of the championship moment for environmentalists, their most enduring success in recent years.
A business owner by day and an ardent advocate for recycling, he wore the happiest face on the dais when City Hall’s commitment to recycling was notably widened.
Mr. Eriksson said:
“It is great that we have decided to take a comprehensive direction regarding our recycling program.”
Perhaps the lone downside was a failed attempt to outlaw the sale of hard foam in retail stores.
Among the nearly four dozen speakers, powerfully enthusiastic students on a common unstoppable mission – rescuing the environment – were the main attraction and perhaps most persuasive.
Girl Scouts, Culver City Middle School students and Ballona Creek Renaissance Club members from Culver City High School could have convinced a stone figure to change his mind on a dime about the environment, so infectious was their unanimous conviction.
