In general, plastic bag bans aren’t perfect, wrote policy analyst John Hite for the Conservation Law Foundation, but they’re a good start. Hite pointed out that, even in studies showing that plastic bag bans increased purchases of thicker trash bags and paper bags, the bans consistently decreased the overall use of single-use plastic bags.
Tom Irwin with the Conservation Law Foundation endorsed the idea. He noted the Legislature two decades ago set a goal of reducing solid waste by 40 percent and put landfills at the bottom of the waste “hierarchy.” “Twenty years later we have not achieved the solid waste reduction goal and we are still operating on a disposal model and relying heavily on landfills,” Irwin said.
“Exhaust pollution is extremely dangerous for children,” CLF staff attorney Kenta Tsuda said in a statement. “DATTCO collects millions of taxpayer dollars to serve Connecticut communities and their schoolchildren. It’s time for this company to prove it cares about these communities, their children, and their futures by stopping this unlawful and unsafe pollution.”
“The climate emergency is already impacting our communities,” Conservation Law Foundation’s Jen Duggan said in a statement. “If we’re serious about tackling this crisis, strong climate laws like the Solutions Act are the answer. We are running out of time, but the strong vote today and the leadership in the House shows we can still get back on track to cut emissions and build healthy and resilient communities if we take action now.”
“Exhaust pollution is extremely dangerous for children,” said Kenta Tsuda, Staff Attorney at CLF. “DATTCO collects millions of taxpayer dollars to serve Connecticut communities and their schoolchildren. It’s time for this company to prove it cares about these communities, their children, and their futures by stopping this unlawful and dangerous pollution.”
Between the FMCB and the administration’s Commission on the Future of Transportation, Governor Baker has laid the groundwork for transforming the crisis-ridden MBTA into a system worthy of our world-class innovation economy and vibrant and diverse neighborhoods. Let’s empower the FMCB to get the job done.
“There’s a fairly damning record of the agency (NOAA Fisheries, also known as the National Marine Fisheries Service) approving (New England Fishery Management) Council plans it should have known were not likely to end overfishing, and were not likely to put cod stocks on any rebuilding timeline,” said Peter Shelley, senior counsel for the foundation.
“The Great Salt Pond is one of the state’s pristine environmental gems, and a huge expansion of the marina would permanently scar it,” senior attorney Jerry Elmer said in a statement. “After almost two decades, this should be the end of this effort.”
Over the years, Pecci said many communities in the state have gone to a single-stream recycling system. And those streams have increasingly captured items that either are not recyclable or for which there is no recycling market, such as coffee-cup lids. “What happened is we degraded the quality of the material,” Pecci said. “The cleaner and more sorted something is, the more value it is going to have.”
“This rule green-lights the dumping of pesticides and toxic chemicals into our waters,” says Heather Govern, director of the Conservation Law Foundation’s clean air and water program. “Drinking water in New England is threatened by rule changes like this, because you just won’t have those same protections for smaller streams.”
