Step Taken Toward Grocery-Bag Ban
The Town Council votes 3-2 to draft an ordinance that would ban plastic grocery bags in Barrington.
Photos
The Town Council took a first step Monday night -- on a split vote -- to ban plastic grocery bags in Barrington.
The councilors voted 3-2 to ask the town solicitor to draft an ordinance that would ban the use of the plastic bags.
The draft ordinance is expected to be ready for a public hearing at the Town Council’s next meeting on Sept. 10.
Councilors June Speakman, Jeff Brenner and Kate Weymouth voted in favor of the motion made by Weymouth to draft the ordinance. Councilors Bill DeWitt and Cynthia Coyne voted against the motion because they favor more discussion before drafting an ordinance.
“Eliminating trash is good,” said DeWitt, “but there may be other alternatives.”
“I like the idea,” said Coyne, “but I would like to broaden it.”
Indeed, the Town Council voted unanimously to set up a workshop in August to hash out some details of a potential ban while also looking at other possible alternatives.
The proposal to ban the grocery bags came from Conservation Commission member Joseph Roberts, a political science professor at Roger Williams University. He made a presentation that was very similar to a “white paper” he drafted as the proposal.
Roberts said his proposal “for all practical purposes would eliminate the use of the plastic grocery bags in Barrington.”
He also said a second part of his proposal would impose fees for the sale of paper bags by businesses to their customers to offset the additional cost for switching from plastic to paper bags.
Roberts said the use of plastic bags is an “environmental scourge” that recycling does not address. He repeated the statistic in his white paper that the recycling rate of 11 percent nationally has risen only about 2 percent in five years.
“Reusing the bags is helpful,” said Roberts, but it doesn’t solve all the problems of the bags, including the impact on wildlife on land and in the seas.
“Taking plastic bags out of the waste stream would also benefit the town’s bottom line,” Roberts said, because Barrington would send far less waste to the landfill.
The proposed bag ban got support from two environmental groups that sent representatives to the meeting: Environment Rhode Island and the Surfrider Foundation.
The former organization presented a petition to the Town Council last Friday with 340 signatures in favor of ban and a letter from 14 businesses in Barrington that support the ban, including Center ACE Hardware.
Channing Jones, a representative for Environment Rhode Island, said: “Barrington can lead the way in Rhode Island. The town can distinguish itself.”
Another organization opposing the ban, the American Progressive Bag Alliance, a trade group for plastic bag manufacturers, also sent a representative.
“Recycling is a better solution,” he said. “Plastic bags make up only a fraction of the waste stream.”
Weymouth made her motion because she said: “Recycling is not working.”
She also said that five out of every six emails or calls she has received on the grocery-bag ban favors doing away with plastic bags.
Weymouth and Speakman also said that they have received more calls and emails on the proposed ban than any issue in the past couple of years, with most of them favoring the ban.
Gary Morse
5:39 am on Tuesday, July 31, 2012
The Conservation Commission, and three members of the Barrington Town Council, appear to have shopping bags over their heads.
Not for pressing the shopping bag issue onto town residents last night, but for dismissing the more significant "carbon footprint" issue being agenda item 15: town provided tax incentives to help developers build out Barrington with affordable housing on the limited space we have left.
Let me rephrase: affordable housing with only 30 year deed restrictions that need to be restocked again in another 30 years with even more property tax incentives.
Here is what RI Housing thinks about the property tax incentives the Barrington Town Council is now providing to developers:
Q: Does a new affordable home pay less in taxes?
A: No, it doesn’t. In that regard, a new “affordable” house is exactly like any other house: it is taxed on its full assessed market value. There is no such thing as “affordable” taxation.
http://www.housingworksri.org/affordable-homes/affordable-housing-101/frequently-asked-questions
So while the Conservation Commission and the majority of Barrington's Town Council chase down shopping bag perpetrators, residents will be feeling real pain in the loss of open space and "no such thing" affordable property tax policies paid for by residents.
Townie
6:02 am on Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Charge for paper bags? Good bye Shaws , hello Stop & Shop.
Jim Murphy
8:11 am on Tuesday, July 31, 2012
I'm wondering what the fear mongers will say when Shaws closes it's doors due to everyone who doesn't want to be inconvenienced by their accomplish nothing ordinance starts shopping in Riverside or Seekonk. How long before paper bags are attacked for killing all the trees? Some folks have way too much time on their hand. A white paper on plastic bags, ROFL!
Manifold Witness
8:19 am on Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Kate Weymouth says “recycling is not working”.
Wow. Wow. WOW. That is big news.
And that does not at all fit with the town's recycling data as reported to the state.
Nor do Mr. Joseph Roberts’ statements fit with Barrington’s reported statistics: ..."use of plastic bags is an 'environmental scourge' that recycling does not address... the recycling rate of 11 percent nationally has risen only about 2 percent in five years.”
More legal fees for Barrington Solicitor Michael Ursillo.
Barrington wants to ban plastic shopping bags? Go back to paper?! Kill more trees?
Many months and thousands of taxpayer dollars spent by candidates discussing this election-friendly issue.
Meanwhile, the streets in Barrington are a mess. National Grid tears 'em up & repaves a 7’ strip. And the Town Council thinks that’s just dandy.
Will folks who reuse the shopping bags need to purchase MORE of those awful, thick, plastic trash bags to line the trash containers?
June, Kate & Jeff voted in favor of a ban. What do June, Kate & Jeff put their trash in?
Big, thick, new plastic bags? Or maybe they don’t use any plastic at their homes?
When those plastic shopping bags first went into use, folks were told that they were recyclable & biodegradable. Is that not true? We need to know.
Good bye Barrington stores, hello Seekonk, East Providence, etc.
If the government can't force people to recycle, they certainly can't force people to shop in Barrington.
Jen
2:53 pm on Tuesday, July 31, 2012
How about we look at the bigger picture? The point of this ban should be to encourage the use of natural fiber reusable bags. Plastic shopping bags are made from non renewable resources such as natural gas and petroleum. The energy used and pollution created to refine these resources and manufacture the bags is also a concern. Yes, paper bags still need to be manufactured but the recycling rate for paper is much higher than that of plastic bags and the amount of energy used to recycle paper is also significantly less than to manufacture new. As for the biodegradable qualities of some plastic bags, no bag in a landfill is going to break down once it is covered with tons of other materials with no air or water circulation. A reusable natural fiber bag is manufactured once and should last for years (I’ve had mine for 5 years). Many supermarkets also offer a 5 cent credit for each reusable bag the customer uses. For those concerned with being charged 5 cents per paper bag, skip a bottled water or coffee out each week and you'll break even. This idea of switching to paper or other natural fibers is only as difficult as each of us wants to make it.
j. davis
7:53 pm on Tuesday, July 31, 2012
I live in California, where we have a number of bag bans. Let me provide some information. As with most laws, if you follow the money, you learn what is behind the issue and the problems the creates. In California, the biggest supporters of the bans are the grocery stores themselves, because they get to keep the 10 cents and eliminate the expense of buying the plastic or paper bags they have been providing for free. Wouldn't it be nice if the city passed a 'card board box fee' at Costco, or a 'paper bag fee' at McDonalds? Would stop litter, and give the store some extra money. What about a cup fee at Starbucks, which they get to keep?
After one year, Santa Monica California has seen some limited waste reduction which has been good, and the local grocery stores have taken in tens of thousands of dollars - and they are happy about that.
I
Gary Morse
8:46 pm on Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Looking up and down my street on a typical trash day, each family has at the curb a couple of hefty bags full of stuff going into the land fill. It is assorted things, 50% of which probably could have been avoided if we took the time to cook our own meals and wash a few containers.
In the driveway sits the "under three years old" family truckster.
On a typical school day, there will be lines of these trucksters idling on New Meadow Road waiting to drop little Johnny off at the school front door because Johnny doesn't want to take the bus. Concurrently, there is a line of thru traffic being blocked because Johnny can't be dropped off curbside. The "No Standing" signs along New Meadow Road are routinely ignored.
Councilor Weymouth claims 5 out of 6 of these environmental souls desire a bag ban.