The Newton City Council approved a ban Tuesday on restaurants using disposable plastic stirrers and polystyrene food containers. The measure also prevents retailers from selling or distributing polystyrene foam disposable food containers and ban selling or distributing foam polystyrene packing material. The new ordinance goes into effect on Jan.1.
Newton City Councilor Vicki Danberg — one of the authors of the ordinance — says she is thinking of setting her sights next on a plastic water bottle ban.
Water bottles – Hallelujah! I was starting to think this day will never come. Are we starting to restore some sanity into this world? Thank you councilors!
Good move. Polystyrene containers in particular are problematic for takeout, not just for the environment but for our health.
Styrene is considered by both the EPA and IARC to be a possible carcinogen. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has a favorite restaurant or two that gives takeout in polystyrene foam that tends to melt into the food if it’s served hot.
Keep up the good work Council! I hate single-use plastic water bottles and have banned them from our house – they are such a waste! I hope Councilor Danberg can get them banned as well!
Local elected officials should not have the power to ban consumer products that are legal in Massachusetts. But this type of ban is low hanging fruit for self-aggrandizing politicians.
@Mike: Why not?
Are people aware that Newton no longer wants us to put black plastic into recycling? e.g. the ubiquitous bottoms of takeout food, and many frozen entrees, like Trader Joe’s, among other places. Apparently the sorting equipment doesn’t “see” black well. I think half my dinners are Chinese or Southeast Asian takeout, or TJ’s Indian frozen, so I’m feeling very bad about that. Saving the ones I’m accumulating, hoping I can find a place that takes them.
I recently learned the Thai place in Newtonville lets you bring your own containers for takeout if they’re not busy. I wish more places would do that, but what’s the large scale solution? Could we receycle more stuff, and reduce the contamination problem, if we asked people to do their own sorting? Seems like single stream is not a success. I read about a town in Japan with a very high recycling rate because people sort their recyclables into something like two dozen categories. I forget the number, but it was a lot.
I already try to avoid places that use polystyrene, and never buy bottled water. If I get thirsty covering an event and pick up a free bottle, I reuse it probably many more times than you’re supposed to.
Here is three other good ideas for Vicki Danberg:
1) A requirement that all city councilors purchase or lease (at their expense) a Prius vehicle as their ONLY transportation for the duration of their term.
2) A resolution, co-docketed by Allison Leary and V. Danberg and supported by all councilors, that supports AOC’s “Green New Deal”. Go big or go home.
3) A 75 percent property tax on all secondary properties owned within Newton by any city councilor. Revenues will be used to offset any current or future damage to our city as a result of global warming.
Correction: Here are three..
I’m proud of and grateful to our city councilors for taking a stand against plastic pollution.
I believe local elected officials *should* have the power to ban consumer products that are legal in Massachusetts because, as
Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill famously said, “All politics is local.”
Consumer products made from plastic have created a global ecological disaster, and likely a public health risk too, in that scientists have reported that microplastics are not just in our oceans and other bodies of water, but also in the air that we breathe: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/04/microplastics-pollution-falls-from-air-even-mountains/.
Three cheers to our city councilors, say I, for leading the way in helping to clean up this mess we’ve created, or at least stop adding to it.
@Paul Green
We have our own Green New Deal, The Citizen’s Climate Action Plan. It’s a very impressive document. Here is a link:
https://www.greennewton.org/citizens-climate-action-plan-for-newton-now-available/
EV’s are the way to go. Some really good rebates. I am planning on getting one.