On Thursday, December 11, Cambridge City Councilor Dennis Carlone will call upon the City Council to vote on the Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance which prohibits the commercial use and distribution of plastic checkout bags. Councilor Carlone is urging his constituents to vote on the matter on December 15, at 5:30 p.m., the last City Council meeting of the year.
If passed, the legislation, as seen below, would make Cambridge the largest city on the East Coast to ban plastic bags in this capacity. In late 2012, Brookline similarly disallowed the use of plastic bags but only for businesses with annual sales in excess of $1 million. Several other Massachusetts towns have approved similar measures including Great Barrington, Manchester-by-the-Sea, and Nantucket – which enacted its ban back in 1990.
According to advocacy group Californians Against Waste Falmouth, Marblehead and Provincetown have limited the amount of plastic bags retailers can use.
“The purpose of Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance is to protect our waterways, reduce waste, and protect the marine environment,” wrote Councilor Carlone in a letter to the City Council. “Plastic checkout bags should be outlawed because they are typically made from polyethylene that is not biodegradable. Instead, the bags break into small peices, called microplastics, which are consumed by animals and litter the ground.”
Bags of this variety, according to Steven Cohen – Executive Director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute and a Professor in the Practice of Public Affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs – are toxic.
Should the ban be voted into law, per the ordinance it’ll take effect 180 days from the date of enactment. Violating it would slap the perpetrator with a fine of no more than $300 for every day the violation continues.
There are some stipulations, however, that would allow a company to continue using plastic bags for up to six months. If outlawing them causes a company “undue hardship” – a case in which there are no reasonable alternatives to the bags, a person is deprived of their legal rights, or an establishment must draw down an existing inventory of plastic bags – the Commissioner of Public Works may allow for this exemption.
“Since 2007, the City Council has submitted no less than eight policy orders to advance the goal of banning plastic bags,” continued Councilor Carlone in his letter. “The Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance is now before us after years of study and public discussion. As other municipalities move to enact plastic bag bans of their own, the time has come for the City of Cambridge to be a leader in the effort to change the ‘single-use, throwaway’ culture that contributes to the problem of global climate change.”
BostInno reached out to the Massachusetts chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmental organization, to find out why it’s taken seven years to put the ordinance to a vote. We’ll be sure to update this article upon receiving a response.
Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance
