"An effort to kill California's first-in-the-nation state ban on single-use plastic grocery bags advanced this week after bag makers spent several million dollars on a campaign to gather signatures for a proposed ballot initiative to overturn it.

The ban, which was passed by the state Legislature and signed by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown in the autumn, is widely supported by environmentalists, who say the bags contribute to litter and pollution. But the measure has triggered a harsh reaction from plastic bag manufacturers, who say their product can be easily recycled.

"You just take it back to the grocery store and stuff it into a container and it gets recycled," said Jon Barrier, a spokesman for the American Progressive Bag Alliance, which is funding the effort to repeal the ban."

Sharon Bernstein reports for Reuters December 30, 2014. [2]