The town of Brookline is considering a ban on Styrofoam and plastic bags, according to an article in The Boston Globe Monday.
Nancy Heller, a Brookline Town Meeting member, proposed the ban after learning about the health and environmental risks Styrofoam posed.
A second proposal to prohibit Brookline retailers from using plastic bags was submitted by Jessica Arconti, a 25-year-old biologist. She, too, cited environmental concerns as the reason for her proposed ban.
Prohibiting retailers from distributing these projects would certainly be a step in the right direction. Styrofoam and plastic bags do pose environmental and health risks, and those risks should be taken seriously.
Moreover, some people will only respond to certain environmental initiatives if “environmentally unsafe” products are made unavailable. However, it does not seem appropriate to wield an outright ban so quickly.
Retailers should be given more time to prepare for such a ban. Maybe the city of Boston could even provide store owners with their first set of replacement cups.
Additionally, if retailers who did not go “paper bag-less” were subjected to the penalties that Arconti proposed: fines for their first two offenses and then a mandatory court appearance, courts may be unsure how to rule. After all, legislature on the subject is fairly new.
A more realistic proposal would be to charge customers for using Styrofoam cups or plastic bags. Other cities have tried similar initiatives, to some success.
Overall, Brookline is a relatively progressive town so any effort to discourage consumers from using environmentally unsafe products would most likely prove successful. It will be interesting to see whether the town decides to ban those products or enact some other, less strict initiative come November.
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