Tim Faulkner: R.I. considers statewide plastic-bag ban

— Photo by eco RI News

From ecoRI News (ecori.org).

A bill proposing a statewide ban on plastic bags is the likely outcome of Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo’s plastic-waste commission, but it isn’t necessarily the result preferred by environmentalists and even some businesses.

Aside from opponents of the ban — a bag distributor and an American Chemistry Council representative spoke against it — there were calls for substantive reform to waste and pollution in the state at the Dec. 14 meeting of Task Force to Tackle Plastics.

Jonathan Stone, executive director of Save The Bay, called it “a gross omission" if the commission’s final report doesn’t address stormwater.

He said any solution to reduce plastic waste should include incentives coupled with increased enforcement of the federal Clean Water Act to address stormwater runoff, preferably through regional entities to manage and finance stormwater projects, known as a stormwater utility.

“Stormwater delivers everything — waste of any kind, including toxins — into the bay and rivers and streams,” Stone said.

Curt Spalding, former director of the New England office for the Environmental Protection Agency, doesn’t want the report to just be a single “transaction” and instead prefers a long-term strategy that includes working with neighboring states.

“I don’t get any sense from this that people are interested in a strategy,” Spalding said, referring to the governor’s appointees who are facilitating the task force.

Spalding noted that the United States is way behind other countries that address the life cycle of plastic packaging through incentives and regulations.

Other members of the task force remarked that there is no data or study of the economic costs and other impacts of plastic pollution in Rhode Island.

“We can ban plastic bags, and it’s not going to solve the plastics problem in the ocean,” Spalding said.

“No, but it’s what’s doable today,” said Sen. Josh Miller, D-Cranston, a task force member and sponsor of many of the failed statewide bag ban bills.

Miller noted that legislation is a starting point that should lead to other initiatives.

There was other pushback against criticism of a statewide bag ban. Janet Coit, director of the Rhode Island Department of Environment Management, and Raimondo’s deputy chief of staff, Rosemary Powers, reminded the 22-member commission that they only have until Feb. 18 to offer legislation that reflects the consensus of the group.

“There are all sorts of ideas, but focusing on a statewide plastic bag ban is something we might be able to bring in with support from people who have technically testified against it,” Coit said. “Because we have a bill that takes business interests into account. If we could get that done, it would really be something to be proud of.”

Powers said she is expecting two or more bills from the task force, while noting that other initiatives will also be moving forward. She didn’t say if those initiatives would be done through the task force or independently.

Raimondo has plenty of political cover for a statewide bag ban. Although legislation has been defeated in the General Assembly every year for nearly a decade, municipal bag bans are sweeping the state. Since Barrington enacted a ban in 2013, 10 Rhode Island communities have passed similar bans on retail plastic bags. Boston started a high-profile ban on Dec. 14.

The launch of Boston’s bag ban prompted the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) to advocate for a ban on plastic bags across New England.

At the recent task force meeting, Kirstie Pecci, director of the zero waste program at CLF, said Raimondo called for innovate solutions when she announced the task force in July and therefor the legislation should include a ban on polystyrene, as well as a provision that restaurants only provide plastic straws upon request.

Pecci advocated for a bottle-deposit law and other consumer incentives that encourage manufactures to use sustainable packaging and take back products that no longer work, a concept known as producer responsibility.

“We need to make sure we take care of (pollution) at the source or we are never going to solve this problem,” she said.

CLF has three goals relating to plastic waste: ban items that aren’t recyclable; increase recycling to 100 percent; and shift the costs and clean up from cities, towns, and states to manufacturers.

Amy Moses, director of CLF in Rhode Island, said taking care of the environment is paramount.

“I think it’s important that we take a step back and realize that plastic comes from fossil fuels. And while they may be cheap — you can buy a case of water bottles for a few bucks — we’re not paying for the true cost of that plastic,” Moses said. “We’re not paying for that pollution when we buy the little bit of plastic in the water bottle. And this plastic is everywhere degrading all of our environment. And the fossils fuels these products are derived from are literally destroying our planet. So I don't think we can focus on the narrow little dollars and cents because there are so many externalities and problems with plastics that are not captured in the prices that you’re paying.”

Business representatives at the meeting, such as Chris Nothnagle, senior director of marketing for Toray Plastics, were inclined to support improving current recycling programs and expanding public education. Toray makes plastic bags and containers at its plant in North Kingstown.

Nothnagle said businesses need incentives to use sustainable packaging, otherwise they will buy the least expensive product, which is usually made of plastic.

“There’s an enormous opportunity to knock this problem way, way, way down with existing infrastructure,” he said.

Recycling is the law

Senator Miller, a restaurant owner, wasn’t sure if businesses are aware of the state’s recycling laws. Every business in Rhode Island, including food establishments, are required to recycle, but there is no enforcement. As of 2014, Rhode Island had only one employee dedicated to commercial recycling.

Unlike Massachusetts, Rhode Island doesn’t inspect waste at landfills to find and fine businesses and municipalities that are throwing away recyclables.

Subcommittee reports

The commission’s final report will reflect the top ideas from four subcommittees. It will also include any dissenting views and recommendations for near- and long-term goals. Each group will meet two or three times before the Feb. 14 deadline.

At the full task force meeting on Dec. 14 each group presented its findings to date.

The Lead By Example subcommittee is considering energizing and expanding DEM’s idle Rhode Island Hospitality Green Certification for the Hospitality & Tourism Industry. The group will also send out a survey to the public to gather best practices.

Save The Bay’s Stone urged boosting local stewardship groups, such as neighborhood associations, to work with businesses to monitor waste and implement new clean-up programs.

The Legislative Solutions subcommittee is focused on passing a bag ban bill and whether a fee on alternative bags would be assessed. The group meets Jan. 7.

The Education subcommittee, led by Dave McLaughlin of Clean Ocean Access, is considering a campaign to reduce plastics at restaurants, an educational program for grades K-12, and re-starting the famed Woodsy Owl campaign from the 1970s and ’80s, with its slogan “Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute!”

Dale Venturi, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Hospitality Association, didn’t like the idea of focusing on the restaurant industry.

“I don’t want it to just be one industry, because that makes me a little uncomfortable, sitting here as the chair (of the Hospitality Association),” Venturi said. “We’re not coming out of this just being focused on our industry.”

The Innovation Committee suggested reconsidering a statewide bottle-deposit law, as Rhode Island is the only state in New England without one. Dennis Nixon suggested mimicking other bag bans, such as the Boston ban. He suggested organizing a local design competition for sustainable packaging. The group also wants support for a fiberglass boat recycling program.

The Task Force to Tackle Plastic is scheduled to meet next on Jan. 9 at DEM headquarters, 235 Promenade St., Room 300, from 11 a.m - 12:30 p.m.

Tim Faulkner is a journalist with ecoRI News.

If Kenya can ban plastic bags, why not us?

From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary'' in GoLocal24.com:

Kenya, of all places, has enacted the world’s strongest ban on those flimsy single-use plastic bags. While the law is mostly targeted at manufacturers and suppliers, police can go after individuals, although the government indicated that it would go easy on “the common man’’. And, The Washington Post reports, the penalties “could include four years in prison and up to {the equivalent of} $40,000 in fines.’’

Some other African nations have imposed full or partial bans on plasticbags, perhaps surprising given their poverty. However, they realize that their long-term prosperity depends in no small part on protecting their environment.

Probably for a long time to come, such a ban will only happen in a few localities in America. We usuallyvalue convenience above environmental protection. That’s too bad because the petrochemical-based bags cause tremendous plastic pollution, kill much wildlife that ingest them and clog sewers and other drains. There are toxic chemical compounds in these bag, and they take many, many years to decompose. These nasty if handy things ought be phased out by a proposed federal law to be enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency, but don’t expect that from the Trump administration,  whose EPA is all too often anti-environment. (More mountaintop removal for coal!)

Bag the plastic bags

Plastic bags kill a lot of animals, especially creatures that live in the water. Until DuPont or some other chemical company comes up with a completely nontoxic and rapidly decaying material out of which to make plastic bags their sale should be banned.

The Trump administration has littleto no interest in protecting eco-systems, so such bans will have to be implemented state by state, community by community, as has happened in some New England places.

Joyce Rowley: Plastic bags on way out of Mass.?

  By JOYCE ROWLEY/ecoRI News contributor

Six years ago, the city of Somerville passed one of the first ordinances in New England requiring large retailers to recycle plastic shopping bags. Now it’s poised to be one of the first to ban the bag in Massachusetts.

“It was a great victory,” said Alderman Rebekah Gewirtz of the earlier campaign to recycle plastic bags. Gewirtz is confident that a new law eliminating plastic shopping bags will also become a reality.

The Somerville Board of Alderman recently sent a draft ordinance to the legislative matters committee for final review.

“I’ve heard nothing but support for it from residents," said Alderman Mark Niedergang, a member of the energy and environment special subcommittee. “It’s time has come.”

Citing impacts to marine and land ecosystems by thin-film plastic shopping bags, the law would allow only compostable or marine-degradable plastic bags that meet certain standards. Reusable plastic bags with 2.25 millimeter thickness or better, as well as durable bags of other materials, could be handed out to customers.

The new law would apply to businesses greater than 2,500 square feet or with three or more stores in single ownership that have a combined size of 2,500 square feet, and retail pharmacies of any size with two or more stores under the same ownership within city limits.

Convenience stores that have gross annual sales in excess of $1 million would have to comply.

“Customers ask for them,” said Ben Weiner, owner of a local liquor store who spoke in opposition to the ban at a public hearing in November. Holding up a black plastic bag used at liquor stores, he said the bags are a convenience.

Resident Maureen Barillaro brought a large plastic bag full of retailers’ shopping bags she had collected along the Mystic River  before the hearing. Reading from a list, she ticked off the names of the retailers the bags came from, and included the black bags favored by liquor stores.

"Somerville is a growing city with a large population. So there’s a lot of plastic bags,” Barillaro said. “A plastic bag ban is really the only way we're ever going to eliminate this issue.”

Somerville would be the sixth Massachusetts municipality to ban plastic shopping bags. Brookline, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Great Barrington and Nantucket have bans in place.

Nantucket's sweeping biodegradable packaging ban, in place since 1990, calls for using anything other than plastic or Styrofoam on all “packaging added to or supplied by vendors or commercial establishments within the Town of Nantucket for merchandize of any type being removed from the establishment.”

Somerville also passed a ban last year on polystyrene (Styrofoam). The law took effect in May and became enforceable in October.

Both ordinances were modeled after Brookline — the city’s polystyrene and plastic bag ban took effect last year. Those ordinances passed by a vote of Town Meeting in 2012.

“It’s going surprisingly well,” said Dr. Alan Balsam, Brookline’s director of public health, whose department is charged with enforcing the bans. “We expected difficulties.”

Balsam’s department supplied retailers with a list of vendors that supply alternatives to plastic. Still, the polystyrene ban took longer to get full compliance.

“Polystyrene is in every food place; there are over 350 in town,” Balsam said.

This year, 100 food services got six-month exemptions as allowed by the law, and about 80 received an extension to the end of 2014. Most are now in compliance except for one or two items, such as plastic coffee-cup lids and the condiment containers in take-out restaurants, according to Balsam. The chain coffee shops such as Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks have alternatives to both the cups and lids.

“You go to the grocery stores, and people put one item in a plastic bag,” said Gewirtz, the Somerville alderman. “They leave with dozens of bags. And where do the bags end up? They end up in the landfills and the waterways. They choke marine life and they never biodegrade. My hope is that we'll get plastic bags banned statewide.”

Massachusetts has yet to pass a plastic reduction or elimination law, although there are five proposed bans in committee.

Editor’s note: SCATV public access coverage of the Nov. 20 public hearing was used for a portion of this article.