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A resident’s push to reduce the number of plastic bags distributed in town will get a boost in educational awareness from the Recycling Commission, but the members won’t support a citizen’s petition if brought to annual Town Meeting this spring.
Just off of his successful bid to ban polystyrene containers in schools and restaurants, Richard Coleman said he is planning to file another citizen’s petition for the Annual Town Meeting in March that would reduce the use of plastic bags.
“That is going to come up at the spring meeting next year,” he said
But Recycling Commissioner Ellen Harde said she and the other members voted to take a different direction when they met on July 13.
“We just don’t like the idea of banning things…,” she said. “We’d like to do it through education.”
The commission members plan to do an educational “blitz,” Harde said, to encourage residents to voluntarily stop using plastic bags.
They’re also planning to approach officials at stores which distribute the bags to ask for a voluntary reduction.
The group is meeting tonight, Sept. 14, to develop a strategy for educating the public, Harde said.
MassGreen lists 55 Massachusetts cities and towns that have enacted plastic bag regulations, including Arlington, Bedford, Framingham, Sudbury, and Concord.
Inherent in any new bylaw is the need to enforce it. That responsibility could fall to the town’s Health Department, where Director Jeff Stephens has expressed concerns.
“I am all for reduction of plastics,” he said, “but I’m not sure we should monitor stores where we don’t issue permits…” Stephens was referencing such retail outlets as clothing and hardware stores which, unlike food-related vendors, his staff members do not inspect.
The plastic bags provided by grocery stores and or other retail outlets are composed of a synthetic polyethylene and are non-biodegradable, according to the Sierra Club. A document distributed by Sierra says the bags are harmful to wildlife because they are often mistaken for food. The bags cause death when animals ingest pieces because the plastic wraps around intestines or gets stuck in the animals’ throats and they choke to death.
“Plastic bags do not biodegrade and although they do fragment through mechanical action and photodegradation in the presence of light, these processes are slow taking an estimated 200+ years to complete,” says the Sierra Club document.
The Board of Health will meet again on Monday, Oct. 2 at 6 p.m. in Town Hall.
The Recycling Commission meets the second Thursday of the month at 7 p.m. at Town Hall.
