Banning the use throughout the city of plastic bags is a positive step in attempting to control our own environment.
Restricting the use of plastic bags by banning one time used bags from groceries, markets and the such – and requiring paper bags to replace them – is a positive move a long time coming.
Most cities and towns around us have already made the change.
Why is this necessary?
Because plastic bags have a nearly 1,000 year life span. They end up fouling the environment everywhere they exist. Even sailors traveling the far ends of the earth’s great oceans find plastic bags floating in a mess, or causing the deaths of fish and birds, and of precious ecosystems which tend to die because of foreign items polluting them like plastic bags.
The council said Monday night it needed a bit more time to make a decision.
One councilor said the item needed a second reading – whatever that means.
Other councilors didn’t see a need to rush the plastic bag ordinance.
But then, if there is no rush about stopping the giveaway to the mayor of $40,000 a year, then what’s the rush to be made about plastic bags?
For resident, photographer and environmentalist Katie Rogers, and councilors Stephanie Martins and Richard DellIsola (who did not attend the meeting Monday night), the council’s inaction was a disappointment.
It should be.
This is an on merit effort that should have passed swiftly without much unneeded political maneuvering.
In two weeks, the measure comes up again, and hopefully, this time it will be for a vote to ban plastic bags.
It is the right thing to do.
We compliment and support this effort and those behind it.