Sixteen
advocates, plus the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Donna Nesselbush, D-Pawtucket, spoke
of how plastic bags pollute urban and rural regions, coastal areas and
Narragansett Bay. Nesselbush said plastic bags are also a product consumers
never had a chance to approve but continually collect as litter.
“When
I was a kid we didn’t even have plastic bags. It wasn’t even an option,"
she said. “As much as they are a convenience, they are killing the
environment."
Last November, Brookline, Mass., banned plastic checkout bags and Styrofoam food containers. Carol Oldham, a member of the town’s governing board, said banning plastic bags lowers the clean-up costs for municipalities and environmental groups.
Brookline
resident Clint Richmond testified at the recent hearing that plastic bags
derive from natural gas. “Every plastic bag you buy or use is a vote for
hydrofracking,” he said.
Environment
Rhode Island submitted a petition signed by 7,300 Rhode Islanders in favor of
the ban, an additional 137 business owners signed the petition.
Students
from Brown University and Salve Regina University also testified in favor of
the ban. “I want to feel proud not just for my town but my entire state,” said
Brown undergraduate Joseph Sacks, of Barrington. The town became the first in
the state to enact a bag ban last October.
Any
sense of positive momentum for the ban shifted once business interests
testified.
Donna
Dempsey, lobbyist for the American Progressive Bag Alliance, argued against the
ban, claiming paper bags have a larger carbon footprint than plastic bags. She
also made reference to the overhyped concern that reusable bags “harbor
dangerous bacteria." Advocates, she said, are misinformed. “I think it’s
emotion versus science.”
The
father and son owners of Packaging & More Inc. in Central Falls solicited
the agreeable comments from Senate committee members David Bates, R-Barrington,
William Conley Jr., D-East Providence, and Stephen Archambault, D-Smithfield.
“If
this bill passed it would be completely catastrophic to my business,” said
Antonio E. Fonseca, a second-generation owner of Packaging & More, a bag
supply company. To comply with a bag ban, he said, the Central Falls business
wouldn’t have the space to stock re-usable and paper bags. New employees would
also need to be hired to maintain the supply.
“Each
time this bill comes up you put me and my family at danger,” he said.
Fonseca’s
father, Antonio S. Fonseca, said the ban won’t work. “It’s not going to change
anything.” Instead he encouraged schools to increase education about recycling
plastic bags.
Christopher
M. Reddy, a scientist in the department of marine chemistry and geochemistry at
the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, said the bag ban advocates’ portrayal
of the problem was “overhyped.” Reddy urged a ban on Styrofoam instead, and
said nitrogen pollution in Narragansett Bay was a greater problem.
“Nitrogen
is something we should be concerned about the most," he said. "It’s
doesn’t choke our turtles so we don’t get excited."
Lobbyist
Paul DeRoche, of the Rhode Island Retail Federation, which represents many of
the large chains, also opposed the bill. He solicited laughs and near backslaps
from several of the senators during his brief warning of the hardships the ban
would cause to businesses.
The
Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation also submitted a letter in
opposition to the ban, writing it would remove recycling opportunities for the
public to dispose of plastic bags and other plastic film. The letter also noted
that plastic bags have many secondary uses, such as trash can liners and pet
waste bags.
“Pet
owners will have to make a choice between buying specific bags for clean up
after their pets and not cleaning up after them," the letter read.
"Human nature suggests that many if not most will choose simply not to
clean up their pet’s waste. This is a potential human health issue that should
be considered.”
The
bill was held for future consideration. A companion bill in the House of
Representatives is expected to have a hearing in the coming weeks.