The Pilgrims Didn't Use Plastic Bags

Next month, Plymouth's Town Meeting representatives will have the opportunity to make Plymouth the first community on the East Coast and the third in the nation to ban the use of lightweight, petroleum-based, plastic bags in the town's larger grocery stores and drugstores.
"Plymouth is the first 'Hometown' in America, and we'd like to make it one of the first 'green' towns," said James Sweeney, chairman of the environmental group, Sustainable Plymouth. The organization submitted the measure as a citizens petition.

Sweeney said residents are reacting with enthusiasm to the initiative. "Our membership has increased by 50 percent since we announced this," Sweeney said.

Sweeney has approached store managers in Plymouth and made some calls to corporate headquarters. The town hosts Stop & Shop, Shaw's, and Wal-Mart grocery stores, and Walgreens, Rite Aid, and CVS drugstores. Sweeney said the store managers generally have been receptive to the ban. It's been harder to get a commitment at the corporate level.

Source: boston.com

We Hope They Succeed. Speaking of NOT using plastic bags - join the Brooklyn Green Team's No Plastic Bag Challenge by emailing brooklyngreen@gmail.com and writing no plastic bags!

Bag-less in Dumbo

Two businesses in DUMBO have begun weaning customers off the latest symbol of wasteful consumerism: the plastic shopping bag. Foragers, the high-end grocery store at Front and Adams streets, has begun deducting 10 cents from the purchases of patrons who decline plastic bags. And Water Street Restaurant and Lounge has stopped delivering food in plastic bags. “We really want our store to be as garbage-free as possible,” said Anna Castellani, the store’s owner (pictured). Castellani said she been trying to cure Brooklynites of their plastic addiction since opening her store two-and-a-half years ago, but said that only recently have customers become amenable to the idea.

In January, the City Council joined the worldwide trend, passing a law requiring stores with at least 5,000 square feet, or chain stores with five or more branches in the city, to collect plastic bags for recycling. The goal of the bill, which goes into effect in July, is to save a tiny bit of the 12 million barrels of oil that are converted into plastic bags every year.

Jane Kojima, a spokeswoman for the DUMBO Improvement District, said she’s lined up about 20 businesses that will begin reducing plastic bags starting in March, once the group distributes canvas bags to every household in the neighborhood. As usual, the Park Slope Food Co-op, which charges members for plastic bags on the honor system, is way ahead of the green movement — though not as far ahead as its general manager would like. “This spring, the Co-op plans to up the ante, voting to entirely eliminate all disposable bags — plastic and paper — from the cooperative grocery store. Holtz predicted that the measure would pass.

Castellani said her three-week-old initiative appears to be having some effect. About 50 percent of her customers now decline plastic bags. Corey Szopinski, who frequently fills up his stomach — and a biodegradable container — with Foragers’ sublime mac and cheese, said he’s thrilled with the new initiative. “Business owners need to start thinking about reducing waste,” said Szopinski. “[And] now that they have biodegradable containers and potato starch utensils (which are awesome!), I go there instead of to restaurants that use Styrofoam or plastic.”

Also, staff from the Center for the Urban Environment have launched a month-long No Plastic Bag Challenge. The goal is to reduce plastic bag use by 75%

Full Story

Source: Brooklyn Paper

Ireland Just Says No! (to plastic bags anyhow)

In 2002, Ireland passed a tax on plastic bags; customers who want them must now pay 33 cents per bag at the register. There was an advertising awareness campaign. And then something happened that was bigger than the sum of these parts. Within weeks, plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Within a year, nearly everyone had bought reusable cloth bags, keeping them in offices and in the backs of cars. Plastic bags were not outlawed, but carrying them became socially unacceptable — on a par with wearing a fur coat or not cleaning up after one’s dog.

In January almost 42 billion plastic bags were used worldwide, according to reusablebags.com; the figure increases by more than half a million bags every minute. A vast majority are not reused, ending up as waste — in landfills or as litter. Because plastic bags are light and compressible, they constitute only 2 percent of landfill, but since most are not biodegradable, they will remain there.

In the past few months, several countries have announced plans to eliminate the bags. Bangladesh and some African nations have sought to ban them because they clog fragile sewerage systems, creating a health hazard. Starting this summer, China will prohibit sellers from handing out free plastic shopping bags, but the price they should charge is not specified, and there is little capacity for enforcement. Australia says it wants to end free plastic bags by the end of the year, but has not decided how.

As nations fail to act decisively, some environmentally conscious chains have moved in with their own policies. Whole Foods Market announced in January that its stores would no longer offer disposable plastic bags, using recycled paper or cloth instead, and many chains are starting to charge customers for plastic bags.

Ireland has moved on with the tax concept, proposing similar taxes on customers for A.T.M. receipts and chewing gum. (The sidewalks of Dublin are dotted with old wads.) The gum tax has been avoided for the time being because the chewing gum giant Wrigley agreed to create a public cleanup fund as an alternative. This year, the government plans to ban conventional light bulbs, making only low-energy, long-life fluorescent bulbs available.

Source: NYTimes