Time’s up for single-use plastics.
Or not less than that continues to be the hope of representatives from ten environmental organizations who gathered final week on Beacon Hill to advertise payments that might ban the distribution of plastic procuring luggage at retail shops statewide.
Sen. Becca Rausch and Rep. Mindy Domb stood with advocates outdoors the State House final week and stated the state ought to comply with the lead of a lot of cities and cities the place single-use plastic bag bans or limitations have already been enforce.
“The fact that we haven’t done it has allowed 156 towns to take the lead,” Domb stated. “We have to level the playing field across the state and have every town sort of be the same so that — stores and customers and municipalities — no one’s put at a disadvantage.”
Supporters of the laws imagined a future the place Massachusetts leads the nation in plastic waste discount.
“The Commonwealth is behind where it should and can be when it comes to reducing plastics,” stated Lydia Churchill of Environmental Massachusetts. “Nothing we use for a few minutes should pollute our environment and threaten our wildlife for hundreds of years.”
The Joint Committee on the Environment and Natural Resources heard greater than 40 payments final week afternoon designed to restrict single-use plastic consumption.
If handed, the laws backed by Rausch and Domb would prohibit retail shops from distributing single-use plastic luggage to customers besides when dealing with prescription remedy, perishable grocery gadgets or delicate clothes.
The payments encourage customers to make use of their very own reusable procuring luggage however shops might promote recycled paper luggage to prospects for ten cents. Stores would remit 5 cents from every paper bag buy to the state, and all income would fund environmental tasks within the municipality the place the bag was bought.
Should the state ban single-use plastic luggage, establishing a unified commonplace rather than the 156 separate insurance policies now in place can be essential, in line with Bill Rennie, vice chairman of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. The commonplace ought to embrace a reworked payment per bag, he stated.
“Paper bags cost significantly more per unit to produce, purchase and ship into the Commonwealth, meaning the cost for retailers and our customers significantly increases,” Rennie stated. “The split fee option adds an unnecessary and complicated compliance, audit and remittal burden to the retailer.”
— Sophie Hauck / State House News Service
Source: www.bostonherald.com”