Plastic Bans

[donkeybutlers]

"As of June 26, 2021, Bourne and Truro joined 13 other Cape towns and adopted the Municipal Plastic Bottle Ban; making a total of 15 of 15 towns with a Municipal policy in place. Chatham, Dennis, and Sandwich adopted the Commercial Single-use Plastic Water Bottle Ban; ending the spring Town Meeting season with 10 of 15 towns with the Commercial Single-use Plastic Water Bottle Ban to be in effect in 2021." from Sustainable Practices, a group which has been organizing this push.

This Seems like an interesting development and seems likely to only deepen on the cape where they plan on targeting all single use plastic next. I do wonder how effective this specific groups approach would be in cities and towns without town meetings but this seems likely to spread to other towns in the state eventually.

The state, although lacking consistency across jurisdictions and any statewide legislation, already has over 100 plastic bag bans, which came before bottles on the cape. (Although unfortunately covid has provided an opportunity for the fossil fuel lobby to astroterf resistance to it again, and has generally resulted in lax enforcement)

Plastic waste is a profound environmental issue locally and globally so here is a thread to discuss updates to the fight to address it:

 

[themissinglink]

Impacts of Vermont’s single-use plastic ban, 5 years later

A new UVM study found that it has not only proved to be very effective, but also popular.

www.wcax.com

A new University of Vermont study shows plastic bag use dropped 91 percent following the law taking effect. “This was really motivated by the fact that there’s a lot of plastic bag legislation in the United States, but very little has been evaluated, and that which does exist is, it’s different everywhere,” said Emily Belarmino, the study’s co-author.

The study also found that about 70 percent of the 745 people surveyed approved of the legislation, many citing the positive impact on the environment.
[...]
The researchers say the ban’s success was due in part to Vermonters pushing for it themselves. They also say an advance notice to businesses made its implementation successful.

In other places where plastic bags have been banned, the researchers say paper bag use has skyrocketed.