Something You CAN Do About Plastic – Call Your Rep!

Call your Representative

A message from Mass Green Network to Massachusetts legislator have only two more days to co-sponsor the statewide bag bill.  Please consider calling your Representative right now asking them to sign on as a co-sponsor of an Act Reducing Plastic Bag Pollution (HD.134).

To find your Representative, click here.

Four years ago there were only seven municipalities in the State with a local bag laws. Today there are over 90, including Boston, Cambridge, Lowell, Framingham, and Burlington. More than 1 in 3 Massachusetts residents lives in a city or town with a bag law. And more are coming: Worcester, Springfield, and Pittsfield are among the cities working on ordinances right now. The people of Massachusetts will value legislative leadership on this issue.

It is good for business:

• The current patchwork of local regulation creates great difficulties for major retailers, and needless anxiety for small business owners.
• They will be well served by a uniform statewide law.
• Reducing bag use will also result in substantial savings.
• With no bag laws, retailers in Massachusetts would spend over $145.7 million per year on plastic bags alone, and even more on paper bags.

Would reduce municipal expenditure:

• Each month, Massachusetts produces between 100 and 125 tons of bag waste.
• Plastic bags get caught in our single-stream recycling machinery, causing delay and damage, and contaminating materials that might be recovered.
• Studies have concluded that the annual costs to cities and towns to subsidize litter management and debris reduction amounts to as much as $10.71 per resident. And this does not account for the indirect costs – the loss to tourism and to the fishing industry. Reducing bags will be a boon for taxpayers.

A fee for paper bags will help business owners and the poor, not harm them:

• Paper bags are much more expensive than plastic bags.
• Without a fee, laws typically reduce bag waste by 60 to 80%. With a modest fee, bag laws reduce both plastic and paper by more than 90%.
• This reduces the overhead for businesses. The savings get passed on to consumers.
• The cost of disposable bags for a family of five is about $100 per year. In contrast, ten reusable supermarket tote bags costs $10, and they last a long time indeed.
• Remember, bags are not free – their costs are just hidden. U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley agrees: bag laws protect our most vulnerable populations.

A statewide bag law will help reduce global warming:

• The production, distribution, and disposal of shopping bags used in Massachusetts produces over 97,000 metric tons of CO2 per year.
  
• The debris from plastic bags in our oceans disrupt the natural processes that generate oxygen and regulate the climate.
  
• Bag laws have more subtle effects too. They encourage consumers to be more thoughtful about their choices.
  

A statewide bag law is the simplest, cheapest, and most effective way to involve ordinary citizens in the solution to the most urgent environmental crisis of our time.

Don’t delay — call today!-Brad Verter
Founder, Mass Green Network