In a 22-0 vote Tuesday, Newton aldermen voted to ban the use of single use plastic bags from Newton stores. Many smaller stores will be exempt from the measure as will dry cleaners and some others.
Newton alderman vote to ban plastic bags
by Greg Reibman | Jan 20, 2015 | Newton | 35 comments
A lot of people worked hard to bring about this terrific result, but no one worked as hard as Ward 1 Alderwoman Alison Leary who spent hours reaching out to the business community and collecting data in order to craft the best ordinance possible. Thank you Alison, and thank you to the rest of my colleagues on the Board who voted unanimously in favor of sustainability and environmental stewardship. Now don’t forget to bring your reusable bag!
Props to Ald. Leary and Ald. Norton, Best thing I ever did was to take my name off of this and hand the ball to them!
While this is a good act, I am still concerned about the health of our city. The fiscal health of the city. Our schools are still over crowded. . . . we have alot of “over” build . . . . and as a citizen, I don’t see Newton’s plan for the future. I don’t see how the middle and high schools can handle the growth. And I am worried. We have seen the trends in the elementary schools.
Our aging buildings . . . .
Plowing . . . .
Second water meters. . . .
Our aging roads. . . .
Sure, fewer plastic bags are great, but I expect our alderman to really work on the health of the city.
Newton Mom, reduced trash on our streets, sidewalks and parks improve city health.
I applaud our Alderwomen and Aldermen for making Newton a cleaner place.
A uselessly symbolic act that makes it all the more difficult for businesses to operate in our city. Anyone who claims otherwise should provide, say in a year’s time, quantitative evidence that trash has been reduced, animals saved, the global environment bettered by this action. It is sad that the population of this city as reflected in their representatives cares more about feeling good than actually solving real problems.
San Jose instituted a plastic bag ban in 2012. Within 1 year the city found 59% decrease in plastic bag litter on streets and 60% decrease in its creeks. http://www.sanjoseca.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/2140
While I think the plastic bag ban is an important step forward, NewtonMom makes a good point. This City has tough issues in front of it. We are not living up to our potential as a City if we do not provide full-day kindergarten. We are not living up to our potential when our kids no longer have after school clubs and activities. We are not living up to our potential when we have numerous vacancies all over Newton Center and exciting potential new business entrants have backed out leaving Newton Center with only a paint store coming in (really? A paint store is going to help revitalize Newton Center?).
The vacancies in Newton Centre bother me too. I think supporting Aldermanic candidates like Chris Steele who is as actively involved with and knowledgeable about economic development as Alison is with environmental issues will make a difference.
@Lucia: Are you starting a “Draft Steele for 2015” campaign?
I certainly hope he runs again. As long as he doesn’t take out Deb Crossley, who is one of our best Alderpeeps.
The problem is not the plastic bag. It is the people that do not responsibly dispose of them. The bags do not just float out of the stores into the trees and then into the oceans to kill our sea turtles.
Plastic bags are not “single use” bags unless the person chooses to make them single use bags. There are lots of us who use the bags for other purposes once the original task is completed. “Single use” is just another marketing campaign gone horribly wrong because it succeeded in conveying the wrong message.
FYI, the “single use” plastic bags offered by Stop & Shop and Shaw’s contain between 15% and 25% recycled materials. The bags also have printed messages requesting the user to reuse or recycle the bags. I guess some people cannot read and understand English.
The reusable bags being offered (actually sold) by various stores are made from 100% polypropylene, in other words, they are plastic. These bags can contain 13 parts (11 plastic and 2 inks, which is also unfriendly to our environment). They require approximately 26 steps / processes to assemble. That does not include the additional manufacturing processes to make the various plastic parts before they can be assembled. This is a far more complex and expensive scenario than the simple plastic bag. Someone will pay for these added costs, and it will not be the companies. Guess who will pay.
The ban does not forbid big stores from offering plastic bags. Now stores can offer plastic bags of a thicker dimension. Maybe now the bags will not float up into our trees, but will be found discarded in our parks, parking lots, street gutters, etc. when the same irresponsible people drop them and gravity takes over.
Stores can continue to offer paper bags. There is question whether more trees will be cut down with the potential elimination of the plastic bag option. I will guess that the big stores will apply some high-priced, college graduates to perform an unemotional financial analysis to see what their best solution to this ban is. Psychologists will say that people who discard trash have a propensity to take the easiest route available, which in this case will not be buying and using reusable bags.
Dry cleaning bags are exempt from the ban even though they make better kites than the small plastic bags.
The biggest offender of plastic bag trash in my neighborhood is the Newton TAB. Every week they discard (I mean deliver) a plastic bag on just about every homeowner’s front walkway. Some make it inside the intended homes; some stay in the street gutters for a very long time based on the dates on the wet newspapers inside the bags. Yet, newspaper bags used for home delivery are exempt from the ban. I hope this exemption was not included so the TAB would avoid writing nasty articles about our Aldermen or maybe endorse someone else in upcoming elections. I got my unsolicited plastic bag with a TAB inside it this morning.
The reusable 100% polypropylene, plastic, green bags offered by the big stores will eventually wear out from all of their use. They will become part of our trash system, and maybe wind up in the ocean where they will kill our sea turtles. It is not just “single use” plastic bags that do not disintegrate.
The Aldermen have not solved a problem. They have changed the environmental groups that will be lobbying them for equal action. Increased paper bag use will mobilize the tree protecting contingent. Repetitive washing required for the reusable bags (using water and environmentally unfriendly detergent) will mobilize the water conservation people. Are our water rates being increased?
I know I am in the minority on this issue. That does not make me wrong.
NewtonMom and NewtonCares, while I agree that each of the issues you refer to are important, they are also not really within the realm of what the Board of Aldermen does. For instance, the school committee and the school administration have authority over full day kindergarten and school buildings. The Mayor, as chief executive of the city, is responsible for taking care of aging buildings, plowing and repairing roads and sidewalks, proposing second meters (thank your lucky stars the administration withdrew its first idea which was to “guesstimate” how much water people were using to water their lawns). With respect to these latter issues, as my friend Ald. Colletti always used to say, “the Mayor proposes, the Board disposes.”
Ordinances, special permits, zoning, resolutions and approving the budget are what the Board does and is supposed to do under the Charter. If you have a beef about those other issues, take them up with the School Committee or the Mayor. The plastic bag ban, which the administration had little if any role in pushing along, is a policy matter that is squarely within what the Board of Alderrmen can and should be doing, whether you agree with this particular policy or not.
As to the merits, from the time this famous scene appeared in The Graduate in 1967 until the present, the number of single use plastic bags used every year has grown from virtually nothing to somewhere between 500 billion and 1 trillion a year worldwide. It is just a matter of time before they are phased out completely, but in the meantime, they are forever and they are increasingly part of the food chain. Newton should always be on the right side of history, and I firmly believe this ordinance is a step in the right direction toward the eventual eradication of plastic bags.
The TAB’s story can be read here.
Oh Patrick, we agree on so much but I must disagree with you here.
I’m delighted the ban passed, and pleasantly surprised (I should say amazed) that it was unanimous. That must indicate something — probably that it’s a reasonable compromise. I think more and more communities, states and even countries will be banning them. I noted this in a letter to the aldermen:
We got along quite well for decades in my lifetime alone without these bags. Even as a tree person, I’m not worried about paper bags. There’s plenty of recyclable paper out there to make bags from. The better option is indeed cloth or polypropylene reusable bags. Which, by the way, you don’t have to buy — you can’t go to something like Harvest Fair or a heath fair or job fair without without being offered some. (And if you join the Newton Tree Conservancy –$20 membership, we’ll give you one of our bags.) I find that mine are lasting for years. And not being too paranoid about germs (after all, I’m going to wash my vegetables or cook them), I rarely wash my reusable bags and have suffered no consequences.
Personally, I think we could do without those newspaper bags as well, but they are handy for picking up dog poop, and they and dry cleaning bags I don’t see ending up in tree branches — it’s the ones with handles that get caught.
People, it’s not that hard to switch to reusable!
— accumulate some at fairs if you don’t want to buy them
— keep them in your car
— after you unload your groceries/purchases, hang the bags on the doorknob of the door you’ll be going out to get to your car
— take them back to the car next time
The 22-0 vote is just one more indication that this city needs a consumer advocate in City Hall. Customers are routinely ripped off by merchants who obscure cash registers and fail to price items individually as required by law, but the BoA does nothing about those things. Different shoppers are charged different prices in Walgreens and CVS, based on “membership,” but the BoA ignores that. Diners are not informed of health code violations in Newton’s restaurants, and the BoA does nothing to improve that system. But put the word “ban” in front of any idea, and the BoA is all over it. In the past year or so they’ve banned medical marijuana dispensaries, banned adults from buying cigarettes, and banned merchants from selling smoking cessation devices. Now they’ve banned plastic bags. Is it too late to propose a ban on increased property taxes?
NewtonCares: A paint store as in house paint or art supplies? Just curious. And which of the seven or eight Newton Centre vacancies I can think of offhand will it be moving into? Not that I want to jinx the deal. It may not sound like a thrilling addition, but we just need warm bodies at the moment. Maybe we could use a movement to get affordable housing for businesses.
A Sherwin Williams store is expected to move into Newton Center at the former location of The Craft Beer Cellar. I miss the Craft Beer Cellar but that’s as close to getting a small hardware store as one can hope to get in 2015 and that certainly seems like a terrific addition to me.
Not that I believe think the City of Newton measures this – but I am curious to see how this personal mission ordinance affects retail revenue in all Newton zip codes. Maybe the Ward 1 Alderman focus on Ward issues now that her reformatory legislation been accomplished.
While I applaud the Board for their perseverance, in particular, Allison Leary…I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t say something semi-negative.
While I am sure this ban cuts down on pollution, but is there any concern about the fact that the biggest alternative is going to be paper bags. Paper is obviously from trees and are we doing anything to conserve trees? I know Julia isn’t concerned about it and she’s the biggest advocate in the city, I do worry.
I worry because there will obviously be more paper bags used along with extra contruction in the city which I am sure uses wood (trees) for framing, etc. I am worried that this brings a new set of problems. But for now…congratulations.
I re-use the plastic bags to clean up after my two dogs and my cat’s litter box. I guess I’ll now either buy plastic bags since you can’t use paper to clean up after your dog, or I’ll drive to a neighboring community to do my grocery shopping.
Lassy (great name for a dog owner by the way!), there are plenty of other plastic bags you can save for dog clean-up — the ones you put vegetables and muffins in, the ones bread and rolls come in, plus newspaper ones.
Thanks, Julia. Those bags you mentioned are ok for my cats but not for my bigger dogs – I have tried, the newspaper ones and the little tear away vegetable ones are too thin and flimsy. I live by myself so I don’t buy a lot of bread and rolls – I’ll figure it out! For me, personally, I multi-used my plastic bags and actually clean up after my dogs.
Greg: Thanks for the information. We’re a Benjamin Moore household ourselves, but any port in a storm. Thanks, too, for letting me wander off topic.
I’m all for being environmental, but am concerned that this will be anti-business and an extreme measure, with styrofoam/food packaging on the next agenda and handled in the same all-or -othing way. I think that it is much more friendly to business to legislate more interim measures such as mandated recycling/collection points and obtaining proof that the materials collected actually get recycled. I patronize several Newton businesses that use plastic bags but do not actively recycle them or make collection apparent or easy.
As for ward 5 aldermen,…Sometimes too many talented people decide to establish legal residency in the same ward. I’ll welcome any new additions that don’t challenge Brian Yates and John Rice. Particularly Brian Yates. He’s a keeper.
Julia, thank you for reading my rather long comment. The length represents more my frustration with the way this issue is discussed than my being a strong supporter for plastic bags.
I was at the meeting last night, and from my perspective the unanimous vote is misleading. Many of the aldermen obviously wanted this to pass; enough votes for passage. I believe others just wanted it to be over for now. There was actually a motion to send the issue back to committee. Alderman Fuller spoke eloquently and with passion that while the goal was correct, the ban is poorly structured. She commented that the ban could have an adverse affect on the use of paper bags in that more would be used. She wanted the committee to evaluate that and the possible use of fees to move people to reusable cloth bags. Alderman Hess-Mahan spoke with an air of statesmanship embedded with a tone of frustration that this topic has been around the committees and the chamber for 3 years. He said that Alderman Fuller’s issues have been addressed several times. He said it was time to move forward with the ban as is. The motion failed 2-20-2.
Watching and listening to other aldermen gave me the feeling that they felt this was not a big issue, it is not an issue that will affect the next elections, and that they would rather deal with other issues. Many acknowledged the problems identified by Alderman Fuller, and said that while this version is not completely proper, at least it would be a first step. Alderman Fuller requested, and Aldermen Leary and Sangiolo agreed that further work would be done to satisfy her concerns. Collectively, they wanted to pass something and then revisit the topic, as necessary, in a year when there would be actual Newton data regarding the ban’s impact on the residents and the retail companies. This does not appear to be the final version of the ban.
My frustration is that the topic is always discussed with an emotional bias. Aldermen Leary and Norton began to make a presentation. It was pointed out that this was not proper procedure for a second call issue, and they had to request permission from their peers for an exemption to the rules. The presentation contained the standard sympathy picture of sea turtles et al. There was a vague reference made associating the plastic bags with the bad practice of fracking and the whole story that “oil is bad” for our environment. Not once in their presentation did they identify the environmental and economic impact on consumers and companies that reusable bags have. It is as if these bags appear magically, are used, and then disappear without any ill affect created to the environment and/or the economy.
It may be hard to believe, but I am not a big plastic bag user. I typically use paper bags with plastic bags for meats and other leaky items. I do like to reuse the “single use” bags to pick up other people’s trash and other dogs’ poop as I walk by dogs. They are also good inexpensive liners for my wastebaskets; I could go on. I also have several of the plastic reusable tote bags having attended way too many technology conventions. I use them when convenient. I do not like to leave the bags in my car because I use my car in a utilitarian way that leaves it less than clean enough for my satisfaction regarding potential dirt, germs and possible bacteria collecting.
Alderman Hess-Mahan mentions the rise of plastic bags since the time when Mrs. Robinson tried to seduce Benjamin. Plastic bags became a viable alternative to paper bags because they were an economical solution to saving our trees, which at the time was the number one environmental concern in the USA. I hope, as Alderman Hess-Mahan does, that plastic bags will be replaced in the near future. Maybe cloth reusable bags are the answer. But until someone makes a valid unemotional case that they are a better economical, as well as environmental, solution, I will continue to fear that cloth reusable bags will somehow also kill our seas turtles.
I didn’t even know this was happening! And Emily, we just spoke too!! Anyway I totally applaud this. In term of fee based, Cambridge looked at that and found it very unfair to businesses in a way that a ban was not…(don’t know the specifics.) While yes fee is better, that is better implemented at the state level vs local. I doubt the styrofoam ban has had any real impact on businesses in Brookline, and while the specifics of this are not as simple as all bags banned, this seems reasonable. Yes paper bags are made from trees, many have recycled content as well, but they can be recycled again and/or composted. Recycling plastic bags can happen but is so intensive it really is not worth it financially or resource wise, it is also so easy to contaminate the bags destined for recycling that they get trashed instead. An additional benefit is a potential reduction in plastic bags in the city green recycling bins, bags are often placed in here and this was a big reason for the push for labels to be added to the bins (if you have not gotten your label yet it will likely happen once the volunteers come out of hibernation for the spring). These bags clog up the recycling equipment and cause good material to be trashed as well as lowered productivity on the part of the facility. There are lots of issues on the table, but this is a good one. I am sure many who are concerned with this will evaluate and work with the community to tweak as needed over the coming months and years.
Patrick, thank you for that thorough account of the Board of Aldermen discussion, which I have not had a chance to listen to, if it’s even up yet. That explains a lot. I only knew about the Fuller motion and THM saying we’ve discussed it enough from Jim Morrison’s tweets (thanks @JimMorrisonTAB). Everything else was a mystery.
Who knows, in a year or two when they revisit, we may have a statewide ban by then?
Maybe a market will develop for real cloth, i.e. cotton ones. One of the bags I use is one my sister whipped up, from some fabric I got 30 years ago in Indonesia, when I was flying back from New Mexico last year with more stuff then I came with and needed something to put it in. I’m quite fond of it.
How about flax?
http://resources.osv.org/explore_learn/document_viewer.php?DocID=729
“this topic (to ban plastic bags) has been around the committees and the chamber for 3 years.”
That’s absolutely pitiful that the Alders have spent 3 years debating banning plastic bags. Maybe they should spend those three years pursuing full reimbursement from Boston and other community for educating 600 of their kids in our school system.
Breaking News: Good Morning America just had a news story this morning reporting that the FDA has agreed with the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) new “announcement that following completion of its latest comprehensive risk assessment of bisphenol A (BPA), it finds there is no consumer health risk from dietary exposure to the chemical.”
BPA has been considered one of the big bad features of using most plastic items and those metal cans lined with BPA. Now it seems that “EFSA not only found that BPA presents no risk to people of any age, from the unborn through adulthood, it also found exposure levels are three to five times lower than the established safe level.” And that “The EFSA conclusion is consistent with the latest reevaluation of BPA’s safety conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and announced via its website in December 2014, and is consistent with those of other regulatory bodies around the world, who have found the low levels of BPA exposure by consumers pose no threat to human health.”
It appears GMA has not posted the story to their webpage yet. The quotes are from a current article on http://www.streetinsider.com.
This does not address the trash problem; however it has to be considered good news for our overall health. Quick, somebody tell the sea turtles.
So now that we have addressed the plastic bag issue, when will the City of Newton start mandating recycling like Lexington or take it a step further as in New York state where all trash has to be in clear plastic bags? There are people in my neighborhood who never put out a green recycling bin on trash day. You would think that at minimum if a green bin is not curbside that the Waste Management people should refuse to take the regular trash away.
Would that some of our political leaders and their developer constituents were as concerned about the wasteful environmental consequences of not conserving our housing stock as they are about plastic bags !
“Quick, somebody tell the sea turtles.”
@Patrick, the FDA says that studies are ongoing and the safety assessment may be revised. Someone should check if the studies of the effects of *eating* lots of polycarbonate-based plastic bags are conclusive.
@Karen N. I second what you say about the overabundance of great candidates in Ward 5, and concur with your positive assessment of John Rice and Brian Yates. They each bring very important and very unique skills that have been very helpful to what I try to do on the Highlands Area Council.
Steven, it would be interesting to know what Charles Darwin would have said about sea turtles mistaking plastic bags for jelly fish.
It is my understanding that there is an “island of trash” the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean. I wonder what the ratio of biotic to abiotic components is in that mess, and what percent of the abiotic material is “single use” plastic bags. Are the sea turtles eating any of the biotic refuse? It would also be interesting to know how much material the sea turtles eat as it sinks from the floating island to the bottom of the sea.
I think that our world political leaders should be addressing the pollution issue in a much more aggressive manner. If plastic bags are bad for the eco system, then all plastic bags should be banned, not just the ones coming from selected big stores. I think Alderman Hess-Mahan would agree with me on this point.