A day after banning polystyrene foam food and beverage containers, Brookline Town Meeting voted Wednesday to prohibit supermarkets and some other retailers from using disposable plastic checkout bags. The ban was approved by a vote of 142 to 53 after proponents showed Town Meeting members pictures of a cow chewing on a plastic bag and other animals entangled in the bags. Only disposable polyethylene bags will be banned. The new law will go into force in December 2013. Supermarkets, as well as some pharmacies and other retail stores, will be prohibited from using plastic bags that are not compostable or marine degradable.
Brookline
Comments
As with Brookline's recent ban on some (but not all) polystyrene foam containers, its ban on some (but not all) polyethylene bags mainly sets an example of foolishness. Brookline town meeting members did not try to find out whether, under local conditions, such a ban would really help or harm the environment. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unlike polystyrene, polyethylene belongs to one of two classes of plastics for which Brookline provides substantial recycling: some polyesters and some polyolefins. However, it recycles only molded items embossed with recycling codes--not films, foams, sheets, slugs or unembossed moldings. The town does not recycle any of the dozens of other classes of plastics. Instead, it burns them all. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Littering the environment is not a significant local issue. As anyone would know who even visited there, Brookline accumulates very little litter. The town's services and its residents regularly collect and dispose of litter, including polyethylene bags. Nearly all is disposed of as municipal solid waste or by private contractors using same disposal services. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Brookline the actual fate of nearly all polyethylene bags is to be burned in a large incinerator. That is also the fate of any likely replacements--more expensive bags made of paper, starches and compostable fibers. Those alternatives consume more energy to produce and distribute, so that overall they are likely to use more nonrenewable resources and to produce more air pollution. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brookline's haste in banning materials is historically odd. Typically the town studies any such proposal carefully, taking into account local conditions. If the town had acted in the same reckless way on a social issue--for example, banning people of Indonesian descent because they are likely to carry cholera--it would be pilloried.
Cambridge must be pissed they didn't do this first.