Kirstie Pecci of the Conservation Law Foundation said the movement to ban plastic bags is “really rolling right now.” She said advocates are not asking people to give up all plastic products but that most plastic is unnecessary and plastic bags are “one of the most replaceable items and should be the most low-hanging fruit.”
The Rhode Island Task Force to Tackle Plastics has finished up its work with a recommendation for a statewide ban on single-use plastics. We support such a move, but it’s just the start of what needs to be done to deal with plastic pollution.
“I love all of New England,” Kirstie Pecci, senior fellow at the Conservation Law Foundation, wrote in a regional update email Tuesday. “I am busting my butt every day to move towards Zero Waste through the whole region.”
One bill sponsored by Stoneham Democratic state Rep. Michael Day seeks to help save taxpayer dollars spent trying to recycle what the Conservation Law Foundation describes as wasteful packaging. Another piece of legislation supported by CLF would require all large-scale fleets of vehicles in Massachusetts — public and private — to go electric by 2035.
CLF is focusing this session on five critical areas of groundbreaking, proactive legislation: cutting carbon pollution, boosting clean transportation, reducing plastic pollution in our environment, and preparing our cities and towns for climate change impacts. Learn more about the bills before the legislature and how you can get involved.
Dozens of these private composting operations have sprouted up across the country in recent years. They’re helping to encourage the public conversation about composting and meeting a demand that could lead to continued growth, says Kirstie Pecci, a senior fellow at the Conservation Law Foundation.
“There’s no reason why single-use plastic bags need to be a part of our daily lives,” said Kirstie Pecci, Director of the Zero Waste program at CLF. “Most bags end up filling our landfills, littering our communities and waters, and polluting our air when burned up in incinerators.”
It’s time to take New England’s work reducing plastic pollution to the next level. CLF’s Zero Waste Project is launching our campaign to ban single-use plastic bags in all six New England states to create less pollution, cleaner coastlines, and healthier communities for all.
“There’s no reason why single-use plastic bags need to be a part of our daily lives,” said Kirstie Pecci, Director of the Zero Waste program at CLF. “Most bags end up filling our landfills, littering our communities and waters, and polluting our air when burned up in incinerators. The citywide ban in Boston is a good start, and we must also ensure that any ban does not burden our elderly or low-income neighbors. We have a real opportunity to end this waste and pollution throughout New England and we must act now.”
“Plastic bags are pervasive in the environment. They litter our communities, they blow around,” she said. “They fall apart eventually and those little bits of plastic, those microplastics, are then in our soil, in our freshwater, in our oceans.”
