Sustainable Lawrence wants to ban plastic bags
LAWRENCE, N.J. – The non-profit organization, Sustainable Lawrence, is trying to find a way to ban single-use-disposable plastic bags that they think consumers abuse in quantity, said a board member.
Noemi de la Puente recently became a member of Sustainable Lawrence when she developed an interest in how consumers are using disposable plastic bags and where they end up in the environment when they dispose of them.
Noemi de la Puente is on the board of Sustainable Lawrence. She is currently advocating a 20 cents fee or a ban on single-use-disposable shopping bags. — By Michelle Dryden/The Media Pub
“A single-use-disposable bag is a single-use-disposable bag. We should be able to shop without them. You know, the question has always been paper or plastic? So, I am saying paper and plastic should both get fees,” says de la Puente.
She is making progress with her initiative. From the time it was an idea to today, she has brought it to the attention of many. Sustainable Lawrence has welcome de la Puente and three others to their organization to fight for the initiative of putting a mandatory fee on plastic bags or just to ban them.
De la Puente along with Pam Mount, Chair of Sustainable New Jersey, Jacquelyn Pillsbury and Christoph Ahlers, board members of Sustainable New Jersey, are all driving this initiative to the State level.
Pam Mount (left) is chairperson for Sustainable New Jersey. Jacquelyn Pillsbury (right) is a member of Sustainable Lawrence. They both support imposing a fee or a ban on single-use-disposable shopping bags.
De la Puente explains that it is difficult to pass ordinance to ban or put a fee on just plastic bags in one township, because consumers will either start using paper bags or just go to the next township to get free plastic bags.
“To be clear the last thing you wanna do is — and it’s an unfair thing to do to the plastic bag manufacturers — is to ban or put a fee on their bags and not paper bags,” says de la Puente.
Christoph Ahlers, a member of Sustainable Lawrence, talks about his role in helping to impose a fee or a ban on single-use-disposable shopping bags.
De la Puente explains that, “We don’t wanna create a gigantic market for the paper bags because that will create a lot of environmental burden. The paper industry is not famous for their cleanliness to the environment. And we don’t want to chop down a whole bunch of trees for something that use for half-an-hour.”
Todd Myers writes an article for the Wall Street Journal that opposes the ban or mandatory fee proposition on single-use-disposable bags.
Myers writes that, “ban backers cite impacts on marine life, but they consistently sidestep the actual data.”
According to Myers, “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for one, says there are currently no published studies about how many marine mammals die because of marine debris.”
He also responds to the argument that plastic bags pollute the oceans and the environment. “As far as the pollution caused by plastic bags, consider a study by Ospar, the European organization working to protect the marine environment. The study found plastic shopping bags represented less than three per cent of marine litter on European beaches, a figure that includes scraps of plastic from shredded bags.”
Myers also said that studies that claim that plastic harm human health are found to be false or exaggerated by organizations like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Pacific Northwest National Labs.
However, Mount supports de la Puente’s views. She said that Sustainable Lawrence and Sustainable New Jersey are trying to get consumers to reduce the use of them, to reuse them or to recycle them, where possible.
