The Carpinteriazation of Banned Bags

California Is Voting on Whether to Catch up With a Beach City Transformed by a Ban on Single-Use Bags

Next month, California might almost catch up with Carpinteria.

The small beach town in Santa Barbara County, population 13,500, is rarely cited as a leader in anything. But when it comes to the California cause of eliminating single-use bags—a cause responsible for two different state measures on the November ballot—Carpinteria is our model city.

Carpinteria boasts California’s broadest ban on single-use bags. It doesn’t just bar getting plastic at the grocery store or other larger retailers; it’s the only place in the state that prohibits paper bags as well. By contrast, the …