How to Solve Portsmouth's Plastic Problem
With Rhode Island's miles of coastline along the Atlantic Ocean, our marine environment is a precious resource. Protecting our beautiful and economically essential waters, such as Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island Sound, and Block Island Sound, needs to be a top priority. Unfortunately, plastic pollution litters these treasured natural places––and far too much of this trash comes from single-use plastic bags that are used for just five minutes before being thrown away.
When these bags enter the marine environment, they slowly photo-degrade––never fully disappearing, but breaking down into smaller and smaller fragments that permeate the water and enter the food chain. Both fish and filter feeders such as quahogs are vulnerable to toxic pollutants like DDT and PCB often absorbed by the plastic bits, putting at risk the entire food chain––which includes us.
Nothing as unnecessary and wasteful as plastic bags should be threatening our health, our environment and our valuable marine resources. Luckily, there is a simple solution: we can eliminate the problem by banning disposable plastic bags so that people switch to reusable ones. Towns like Portsmouth can lead the way by enacting bag ban ordinances.
Seamus Sullivan
Environment Rhode Island
seamus_sullivan@my.uri.edu
Environment Rhode Island is a statewide, citizen-funded environmental advocacy group.
Joe Sousa.
5:46 am on Thursday, February 9, 2012
Reusable bags have been in use in Europe for decades. There made from hemp canvas and last a long time. Getting off plastic will help reduce our oil consumption . Getting people to use them here will be a challenge.
Brian St. Onge
8:41 pm on Friday, February 10, 2012
A more serious plastics problem is the uneducated population's consumption of filtered municipal tap water and the gulping of so-called "vitamin" waters which have fewer benefits than a chip off a daily vitamin tablet - all at a cost that borders on insanity.
Boggins McWhine
12:25 am on Saturday, February 11, 2012
How about eliminating plastic surgery and breast augmentation?
TAMORI
10:34 am on Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Insanity? Here’s plastic insanity for ya that just irks me. From time to time when I get a coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts…whether it’s a hot or cold drink…the server there will slip the beverage container into a second plastic or Styrofoam cup to serve as an insulator. So, when I see that happen I’d tell the person “I don’t need that second cup.” And they respond by saying “Oh, sorry.” And quickly take it off and throw right in their trash…which I’m sure doesn’t get recycled. So now, instead of saying anything about it I just take the cup and put it in my recycling at home. Unfortunately there are too many people who don’t. And not only are those superfluous cups not needed, they’re frequently not getting recycled. I know this because I see doubled-up DD cups when I pick up litter near my home. The three R’s need to be constantly enforced. Reduce, reuse, recycle.
A really concerned citizen
6:14 pm on Tuesday, February 14, 2012
I disagree, the second insulator cup on iced coffee is needed, or the ice melts in 10 minutes giving you a watered down iced coffee, obviously more so in the summer, I think they should find a better solution, like cups made out of recyclables.
TAMORI
1:30 pm on Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Ten minutes??? What in the world takes you so long to consume an ice coffee?
Anyway… have you ever given any thought to the fact that every single piece of plastic ever produced, EVER, still exists somewhere in our environment. Every piece. Maybe it was recycled into something else, maybe it’s been floating around the North Pacific Gyre for a few decades, or maybe it’s buried and leaching its chemicals into our water and food chain. All that plastic, and more, will still be around when your grandchildren die.