Photo: ND700 via Shutterstock
June 17, 2019 (PORTLAND, ME) – Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) released the following statement today after Governor Janet Mills signed a plastic bag ban into law.
“Plastic bags are used for mere minutes before they poison our communities and our bodies for years,” said Kirstie Pecci, Director of the Zero Waste Project at CLF. “We cannot recycle our way out of this. Banning single-use plastics is the only way to protect our health and environment from this dangerous blight on our communities.”
Plastic bags are created from petroleum, a nonrenewable resource, and take hundreds of years to decompose. They litter our streets and parks, forcing local governments to spend money on clean up efforts. Bags also end up in our rivers, oceans, and eventually make their way into our bodies as microplastics.
The law signed today will prohibit stores from distributing single-use plastic bags and will impose a five-cent fee on recyclable bags. It goes into effect on Earth Day 2020.
CLF has been pushing for plastic bag bans in every state in New England. You can read more about that effort here.
CLF experts are available for further comment.
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