LOS ANGELES — Cheryl Auger was stunned this month when one of her Pasadena neighbors and friends received a flyer in the mail featuring her state assemblyman, with a line stating, “Higher taxes on plastic products will enrich corporate interests with no guarantee of reducing plastic waste.”
Although she didn’t know it at the time, Auger’s friend was on the receiving end of a plastics industry campaign to pressure state lawmakers into weakening proposed restrictions on single-use containers, which legislators are mulling in bill form and which could become a November ballot measure.
“What is surprising to me is a lack of culpability,” said Auger, a plastic waste activist.
