no more plastic bags in 2021... 10 cents per paper bag
FRAMINGHAM – The Framingham City
Council passed a bag ordinance that will charge 10 cents for paper bags at
stores in the City, and ban all plastic bags.
The vote was 10-1. District 4 City
Councilor Mike Cannon was the lone vote against. He chairs the City Council’s
Economic Development subcommittee.
The driver for the bag ordinance was
District 8 City Councilor Judith Grove, who chairs the City Council’s
environmental subcommittee and an Environmental Task Force.
The new bag ordinance will go into
effect on January 1, 2021.
The new law bans all plastic bags
except for produce bags at retail and grocery stores. The new ordinance does
not apply to restaurants, who use takeout bags.
Town Meeting passed a thin-film
single-use bag ban that began January 1, 2018.
But since that was implemented,
Councilor Grove has been advocated for adding a fee for paper bags to encourage
shoppers to bring their own reusable bags to stores when they shop.
The new ordinance approved Tuesday
night adds a 10 cents per bag fee for paper bags. The fee will go to the
retailer.
New ordinance “mandates that stores
shall make available for purchase a reusable checkout bag or recyclable paper
bag for a charge of no less than $0.10.”
The ordinance also mandates “all
moneys (sic) collected pursuant to this section shall be retained by the
store.”
District 3 City Councilor suggested
an amendment to the ordinance that allowed for those on government assistance
to be exempt from the 10 cents per bag fee. The amendment passed.
City Council Chair Dennis Giombetti
requested an amendment to start the new ordinance in 2021 as opposed to July 1,
2020, to allow time for a full education plan for residents and businesses. The
amendment passed.
Work on this new bag ordinance
started earlier this year.
The Environmental Task Force was
created to evaluate the City of Framingham’s Plastic Bag Reduction Bylaw for
the purpose of determining if the bylaw is having its intended effect, and to
propose to the Mayor and City Council any changes to the existing bylaw.
The 7-member Environmental Task
Force began its evaluation in February of 2019 and completed its evaluation in
June of 2019.
Environmental Task Force Members
included the City’s Recycling Coordinator Stephen Sarnosky Councilor Judith
Grove, Councilor Margareth Shepard, the City’s Sustainability Coordinator Shawn
Lutz, Adam DiPersio from the Framingham Public Health Department; James DeMeo,
from Framingham Inspectional Services; and Larry Stoodt, a Framingham resident
and environmental advocate
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 2:13 PM
8 Comments
8 Comments:
Instead of the council dealing with real issues it wastes time trying to screw over the average taxpayer. I can feel Grove’s hand now in my front pocket looking for change.
Whoaaaa Judy, that ain't no roll of dimes you got there!
This is absurd. Pay for a plastic bag to take your purchase home in? Pretty soon they will ask us to pay for the gas to have the products delivered to the store. Shame on Grove. What the hell was she thinking?
What gives the city council the right to set sn expense to residents that does not go into our general fund? Since when do they have this right? Can someone answer that question please ?
All this is does is gives more money to the stores. It won't do a thing to cut back usage. The environmental warriors can give themselves a win and a pat on the back, but its a hollow win.
The City Counsel can make any ordinance it wants. This is what the City supporters wanted for Framingham.
Unfortunately, the plastic bag ban did not consider biodegradable (plant based) plastic bags.
We all need to think about what we are leaving our children and grandchildren to deal with regarding the environment. There's no disputing that petroleum based plastic's of all kinds are bad for the environment as they will be here for hundreds of years, in our land fills, rivers and oceans.
The 10 cent bag fee is not the way to discourage plastic bag use imo.
I agree Jim about this not being the way. Have they never heard of the Pavlovian Theory? People, and dogs, respond better to rewards for good behavior than they do to penalties for bad behavior. This is a penalty for what some consider bad behavior. Wrong approach to solve this problem if you ask me.
Jim of course they didn't look at biodegradable bags. That would have dragged out the process. The councilors need some type of win before they leave office. What else have they done? The city pushers sold us a fairy tale, and enough people bought it. Switching to a city has not improved my life one bit. But at least Judy can feel good and put her 'social justice bag tax' feather in her cap which the rest of us will pay for.
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