Plastic Pollutants

Globally, we have produced 8.3 billion metric tons of plastics, outpacing all man-made materials other than steel and cement. That number is projected to grow to 34 billion by 2050. With only 9% of plastics recycled and 12% incinerated, 79% of all plastics produced accumulate in landfills and our natural environment. It is easy to see how reducing the production of plastics – most critically single-use plastics – is urgent and crucial.

The City of Del Mar’s leadership, staff and residents deserve recognition for their longstanding efforts to reduce single-use plastic waste in our city. And now, demonstrating a commitment to continual progress towards meeting or exceeding the most current and comprehensive single-use plastic waste reduction ordinances in San Diego County, Del Mar taking proactive steps. With recommendations from the Sustainability Advisory Committee (SAC) and final approval from the City Council, the City is working to update our plastics ordinance and ultimately help minimize single-use plastics in our community and our beaches.

In preparation, Janis Jones, Rise Above Plastics co-lead, and Mitch Silverstein, Senior Policy Manager, from Surfrider briefed the SAC on best practices in local plastics laws and how Del Mar benchmarks against others in our region. Here are their recommendations on how we can bring Del Mar up to speed:

• Require single-use foodware and accessory items to be compostable (and compatible with our waste hauler’s organic green recycling process)
• Amend single-use plastic bag ban language effective January 2026, to harmonize with SB1053 (No plastic bags of any kind at checkout
• Expand foam ban to include retail sales of foam foodware. Ban foam egg cartons, coolers, containers, beach toys, dock floats, etc. not wholly encapsulated or encased within a non-polystyrene foam material.
• Prohibit plastic beverage bottles on City property and for City-sponsored events. Consider banning sales of plastic water bottles of a certain size or all.
• Align with Skip the Stuff (SB 1276) upon request only

Proposed updates to the ordinance will go to SAC in October followed by the City Council. Let’s look to incorporate the recommendations above and eliminate non-compostable single-use plastics in Del Mar.