By Amy Alonzo — Lake Tahoe is famous for its clear water, spectacular shoreline and plentiful beaches. Popular spots for sunbathing, picnicking and other activities, the beaches have a problem — plastic bottles.
Single-use plastic bottles are one of the most common pieces of trash found around Lake Tahoe, regularly outnumbering aluminum cans, pull tabs and food wrappers cleaned up by volunteers.
On both the California and Nevada sides of the lake, volunteers at cleanup efforts organized by Keep Tahoe Blue have picked up more than 24,000 plastic bottles over the past decade. In 2023 and 2024, volunteers removed more than 2,000 plastic bottles just from the Nevada side.
A bill introduced by Sen. Melanie Scheible (D-Las Vegas) takes direct aim at the issue and would prohibit the sale of single-use plastic water bottles on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.
SB324 builds off similar California initiatives. The City of South Lake Tahoe prohibits the sale of single-use plastic water bottles containing less than 1 gallon of liquid and, starting April 22, the town of Truckee will have a similar ordinance take effect.
“This bill is coming from local people who live in Lake Tahoe, who visit Lake Tahoe, who love Lake Tahoe, who really want to maintain the beauty of the lake for generations to come,” Scheible said in an interview.
It’s ‘Tahoe culture’ to bring a refillable bottle
If passed, local health departments would be responsible for enforcing the bill starting Jan. 1 — violators would receive a warning, followed by increasing fines of up to $500 per violation per year.
But restricting access to bottled water would hinder peoples’ options for a healthier beverage alternative, likely hurt small businesses and fail to achieve environmental goals, argued the International Bottled Water and American Beverage associations.
“This legislation is not in the public interest,” the International Bottled Water Association stated in written testimony against the bill. “Restricting access to bottled water, in any packaging, would hinder individuals searching for a healthier beverage alternative.”
This isn’t Scheible’s first attempt to address plastic concerns. In 2019, she introduced a bill that would have launched a pilot program adding a deposit to bottle purchases, similar to programs in California and Oregon.
That bill didn’t pass, nor was it the first time lawmakers considered a deposit. In 2011, AB427 created a committee to study the deposits and refunds on recycled products, but two years later chose not to pursue a bottle bill.
Proponents of SB324 are hoping people will pack in their own water in reusable containers or use any of the free stations around the Tahoe Basin that let people fill their own bottles with the lake’s (treated) water.
“It is a growing part of the culture at Tahoe to bring your bottle and fill it before you head out for the day,” Noa Banayan, government affairs manager for Keep Tahoe Blue, said during the April 1 hearing on the bill.
Consumers will still have the option to purchase water in boxes or cans, or other beverages such as soda that are sold in plastic bottles. The difference is that people can visit a refill station and get access to world-class water, Banayan said, while there aren’t taps that let people access free soda.
“We’re targeting plastic water bottles because we have this incredible alternative with Tahoe tap water,” Banayan said.
Plastic by the numbers:
Want a little plastic trivia? Here’s some hard-to-fathom numbers I stumbled across while researching plastic.
- Each minute, an estimated 1 million plastic bottles are sold worldwide.
- At least 15 million metric tons of plastic float into the ocean each year. It’s estimated there is roughly 1 pound of plastic for every 3 pounds of fish in the ocean.
- Less than one-third of all plastic bottles are recycled.
- In 2020, 11 people were arrested on suspicion of running a multistate recycling operation that transported empty plastic, aluminum and glass from Nevada and Arizona into California, costing California’s recycling fund more than $2 million.
— This story is used with permission of The Nevada Independent. Go here for updates to this and other Nevada Independent stories.
