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In 2021, Californians threw away 230,000 tons of plastic grocery bags, according to CalRecycle. Toxic chemicals leach from plastic bags into our waterways and our food, and Americans consume a credit card’s worth of plastic each week. These chemicals can have negative impacts on brain development and our reproductive health. Californians voted to ban single-use plastic bags in 2016, but a loophole allows grocery stores to provide thicker plastic bags at checkout and label them “reusable.” Now plastic bag waste is at an all-time high. Two bills in the Legislature, SB1053 and AB2236, would close the loophole and finally ban plastic grocery bags in California. The issue of plastic bags goes back 2013, when the City of Mill Valley began enforcing them. 

Housing “displacement” is the focus of a new countywide survey aimed at gathering data on who is at risk and guiding recommendations  for municipal action. The survey was crafted to illuminate the mechanics of displacement that force residents to leave Marin because of the high cost of living or other factors, said Leelee Thomas, a housing official at the Marin County Community Development Agency.

Marin IJ: The worlds of music and food lost one of their most quietly charismatic characters when DiGiovine died July 16 at his Larkspur home with Lynn, his wife of 44 years, by his side. Friends said the cause of death was glioblastoma, brain cancer. He was 72.

Clearly, climate change is the environmental battle of our lifetimes. Millions of lives, countless coastal regions and an inconceivable number of species, as well as ecosystems, are on the line. While Marin doesn’t need to replicate San Francisco, it cannot consider itself pro-environmental while doing nothing. As a place that will face rising sea levels and increasingly common wildfires head-on, the answer is clear: It must build more homes.

Artists incarcerated inside State Correctional Institute Phoenix, in suburban Montgomery County just outside Philadelphia, collaborated with their counterparts inside San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, near San Francisco, California, to stage an art exhibition. “The View From Here” has been on view at Paradigm Gallery in Philadelphia’s Old City. “The View From Here” will be on display from May 4th-June 3rd. Opening reception is on Tuesday, May 7th. The event is set for Thursday, May 23 from 6:30pm – 8:30pm in the Creekside Room.