By Pam Sinotte
What do Brookline, California and Hawaii have in common? Each has enacted laws to reduce plastic bag pollution – and now we in the state of Massachusetts have the opportunity to do the same.
Trees festooned with plastic bags may not be very appealing, but the problem of plastic bags goes much deeper than the visuals. Consider this:
- 100 billion single-use plastic bags are used each year in the United States, and Massachusetts alone uses 4.2 billion.
- The 700 billion plastics bags used in the world each year contribute to global warming and climate disruption via fossil fuel energy used to produce and transport them and carbon emissions as they decompose.
- Plastic bag pollution in our oceans causes $13 billion in marine damage yearly.
Please email, call and/or write your state elected officials and ask them to support these bills in the Committee. Ask that these bills be sent to the Joint Ways and Means Committee. You can find elected officials’ addresses at Wheredoivotema.com. Please ask your friends to join the effort, and stay tuned for updates from GreeningRozzie.
