Bag Bans Proposed In RI - What Do You Think?
Bristol might follow Barrington's lead, Providence Rep. proposes state-wide ban.
Plastic bags, a retail staple conveying purchases from shoes to groceries, endanger wildlife, comprise the majority of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirling mass of seaborne junk — and may be banned in Rhode Island.
Barrington passed a local ban on plastic bags in October that took effect Jan. 1. Bristol is considering a ban as well, though a vote on the matter has been postponed for further study.
Rep. Maria Cimini (D-Dist. 7, Providence) is proposing her own state-wide ban of the bags, H-5403.
"With Narragansett Bay, hundreds of miles of coastline, dozens of islands, and hundreds of bodies of water including rivers, ponds, and lakes, Rhode Island faces a real threat from plastic pollution. Single-use plastic checkout bags are a primary source of this pollution, littering Rhode Island's neighborhoods, parks, and roadsides, as well as aquatic and coastal environments, posing a direct threat to wildlife and accumulating in waterways. A ban on these plastic bags is the most effective way to eliminate this source of pollution," Cimini's bill reads.
Cimini's ban is modeled on the Barrington ban, according to a report by EcoRI.org, and would start January 2014 for large retailers and January 2015 for small retailers.
The ban applies to plastic bags at checkout lines. Dry cleaning plastic bags and bags that hold produce, deli meat and flowers would be exempt. Fines range from $150 to $300 dollars. The state Department of Environmental Management (DEM) would oversee the ban. Retailers will be allowed to charge 10 cents per bag for recyclable paper bags.
A ban would apply to stores like Shaw's on Diamond Hill Road, which uses plastic bags at their checkout lines. The store also uses reuseable bags and recyclable paper bags.
Steve Sylven, external communications manager at Shaw's, said they'd prefer a state-wide ban. "Shaw’s is committed to environmental stewardship and sustainable operations, which includes reducing the use of single-use carry out bags from our stores and encouraging reusable bag use. In general, we support efforts to ban single use carry out bags and prefer the proposals should be done at the state level," Sylven said.
Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRCC) opposes the ban, EcoRI.org reports, because it would end the state's bag recycling program, ReStore.
John M
7:37 am on Thursday, February 28, 2013
Sure ban plastic bags and use paper bags,then we will have people saying we are killing all our trees for the paper bags,the old saying is,you can;t please everyone;
so true;
Craig Civic
4:42 pm on Thursday, February 28, 2013
What a child-like answer. Good God. Go out and get a few CLOTH bags that don't use ANY resources except your own ARMS. Maybe wash them once in a great while. but, that wouldn't occur to someone like you. Your "solution", as with most, is to just DO NOTHING instead of SOMETHING.
Victoria Leiter Mele
6:25 pm on Thursday, February 28, 2013
I have used nothing but cloth bags for about 5 years and I figure it means a couple of hundred less plastic bags a year going into the garbage..
Craig Civic
7:54 pm on Thursday, February 28, 2013
No question, me too. It's too bad Stop & Shop curtailed the program that gave people .5 cents off your receipt for each (S & S "green") cloth bag one used. It wasn't so much the money (I think I got back $10/year...200 bags x .05 cents) but it WAS an incentive to some...and, as you said, just for me (single) it saved about 200 bags. I asked them why they curtailed the program. Ready for the answer?! "Not enough people were using the cloth bags for us to maintain the program." Ummm, what? I think TOO many may had been using them! :>) If JUST 50,000 people used them 4 times/week...that would save 10,000,000 bags...but, cost S & S $500,000! Hmmmmm......I'm betting there were more like 150,000 people using them...meaning $1.5 million/year :)
Joan
10:46 pm on Thursday, February 28, 2013
I was just in San Francisco and they charge you 10 cents for any bag....grocery store, shoe store, drug store etc.....you are welcome to carry a bag....and everyone does! 10 cents a bag everywhere becomes a big deal.......but you feel so much better about not having so many bags
Craig Civic
12:49 pm on Friday, March 1, 2013
That is ANOTHER reason to love SF (was just there in November)! What a great idea...better than the S&S .5 cent off idea. The fact that "everyone does!" proves it's not so hard to change human behavior. Especially with a monetary nudge :>) I also find that...w/ the cloth bags...I now use them all the time carrying things (that I have NOT purchased) back and forth from home to car and vice versa. Can't leave home w/o one! :>)
T
9:51 am on Sunday, March 10, 2013
RIGHT...so OSHA is going to give a thumbs-up to folks bringing in their material bags--bags that are not washed after every use--and be okay with these bags bringing in ants, roaches, silverfish, what have you from peoples' homes. Disgusting.
I guess there just aren't enough people who want to form litter groups and clean up the shores and such, being the hypocrites they are. Far better to implement a dumb idea that is punitive and filthy than to be motivated to do outdoor work, knowing litter is NOT GOING AWAY not matter what is done.
T
12:03 pm on Sunday, March 10, 2013
Additionally, the national trend is growing to BAN MATERIAL BAGS. They have given rise to incredible increases in theft (costs that get passed to taxpayers). As for Aquidneck Island, I'm on the shores of these beaches just about every other day--mostly in Middletown and Newport, less often in Portsmouth--for my small business. The litter I find on these shores is mostly water/soda/chocolate/elite beverage bottles, tampon casings (ugh and bizarre) and alcohol bottles. If RI would be SMART and reinstitute the 5-cent bottle return we'd go a looooong ways to helping our shores.
Craig Civic
3:53 pm on Sunday, March 10, 2013
What are you TALKING about??! OSHA?! People ARE bringing in THEIR OWN bags! To shop and to recycle the plastic ones. How do YOU know who washes them and who doesn't? That's an ASSUMPTION on YOUR part that they do NOT. ANOTHER assumption is that people HAVE (and will be TRANSPORTING) ants, roaches and silverfish in and from their HOMES. Sounds like YOUR home, not OURS, is...DISGUSTING...so you assume everyone's is. Holy Moly.
Craig Civic
3:53 pm on Sunday, March 10, 2013
And....Litter groups? NOTHING wrong with them except to do ONLY that...pick UP the already tossed litter...is similar to Western Medicine because it only treats the SYMPTOMS...not the the CAUSES of the litter problem. I walk every day/every other day...and bring a bag for trash with me every day...Bellevue, Ledge, Coggeshall, Ocean Drive...the Beach lots. I can walk the SAME route day after day...and fill that bag up DAY AFTER DAY. Over the route I cleaned up completely 24 HOURS before. It's a NEGATIVE attitude...and your OPINION...that "the litter is NOT GOING AWAY no matter what is done." Attitudes and behaviors CAN be changed if you give people a reason and make it easier to do so. I remember when NO ONE thought people would pump there own gas. Walla! If it was CHEAPER they WOULD and DID. One problem in this town is there are NOT ENOUGH trash receptacles. Another is that with parks like Fort Adams the policy is to bring OUT what you took IN. Hello? That goes against any rational thought. And it is why the woods in and around Ft Adams are FILLED with trash.
Craig Civic
3:57 pm on Sunday, March 10, 2013
As for the bottle bill?? ALL for it!! Always HAVE been. I've been in the beverage biz for 25+ years and it is amazing we are STILL the only NE state that doesn't do it...and you can tell by our roadways. And, traveling by train to NYC the sides of the tracks in the RI section are hard to believe they are so full of junk.
La.
1:41 pm on Wednesday, April 10, 2013
A great thing about the bottle return is even if you don't use it, there are others who will collect them to get the 5c-- we know some people that do it as a family thing going around to people's recyclables and on that alone they take a trip to Disney and stay in the resort....so it's incentive for them to find the bottles.
As for the bags, in our house we use them as trash bags for the small trash containers in the bathroom, also in the car for trash, we reuse them to bring food to people, or bringing a snack with us somewhere, or many different uses- a friend covered her feet with them the other day to not bring mud in the house. We big time reuse them..only complaint is in the last few years the quality has become so bad at most places that they rip often before we can get much use-- wish they were like Christmas Tree Shop's those are NICE bags even nicer than the average before they went downhill- and places like I think Price Rite- you buy those bags but they LAST-- they are so strong I wouldn't even use them as a trash bag, or would keep reusing it dumping the stuff into the larger bag......
Craig Civic
6:46 pm on Wednesday, April 10, 2013
All for the bottle bill but it is a tough road here in RI to get it passed. There are some reasons why distributors and bottlers don't want to deal with it and it is usually because the state ends up making it a money maker for THEM and not those companies. They can't pocket the .5C for the cans/bottles that DON'T come back. I know in CT, MA, etc...they actually have to give the $$ to the State(s). So, handling all those empties turns out to be a thankless job that COSTS them $$. I commend you on your use3/reuse of those bags...but...why bother with them at all? :>) I had 2 free cloth bags from years ago at Stop & Shop and then bought 4 more for .99/c each and I NEVER...EVER...see a plastic bag anymore. I bring those bags into Ocean State, CVS, wherever...and they are only too happy to "let" me use them. CVS has cloth \bags too :>) It was very freeiung to NEVERR have those bags come into my home again ;>)