To: Board of Selectmen, Selectmen and Finance Committee, Finance Committee

01545 Ban the Bag

Representative Town Meeting members will vote to ban plastic shopping bags from stores in Shrewsbury,MA. The Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee voted not to support this based on their personal views, and passed the issue back to the state. Tell them to change their opinion, this costs the town money beyond the cost of a bag.

Why is this important?

The town recycling hauler has been fined for having plastic bags in our our curbside bins and due to the lightweight nature of the bags they blow around when animals dig in trash. These windblown items become dangerous for wildlife and create mosquito breeding vectors along with other litter. Very few people return bags to store recycling bins. Big corporate petro chemical corporations are spending millions to defeat any bag bans and the current two bills on the Boston State house floor are likely to die in committee, like the expanded bottle bill which took 20 years before environmentalist presented to voters in a state wide ballot.