Wilmington Residents Have A Few More Months Before Bag Ban

WILMINGTON, MA -- More than a dozen Massachusetts communities started enforcing bans on plastic shopping bags Tuesday, but Wilmington wasn't one of them. The widespread publicity of other towns' bans caused some confusion among Wilmington residents who began asking for details about the ban on social media and in messages to Wilmington Patch.

Wilmington passed its ban on non-reusable, plastic shopping bags at Town Meeting last May. But the new rules do not go into effect until May 5 to give businesses a full year to prepare for the ban. The new rules will prohibit local businesses from giving out plastic shopping bags and allows them to charge customers for paper shopping bags.

The new rule includes exceptions for bags used for produce and meat, newspapers, and laundry and dry cleaning. The goal of such laws is to encourage shoppers to use reusable bags and reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in landfills. Unlike their paper counterparts, plastic shopping bags are not typically accepted in recycling programs, meaning shoppers have to bring them back to the store to get them recycled. As a result, only about 1% to 3% of them are recycled.

About 100 billion plastic shopping bags are used in the U.S. each year. In recent years, other Massachusetts communities have banned or considered banning plastic shopping bags that are a still a staple at many supermarkets. Other towns have collected taxes on all shopping bags, plastic or otherwise, as a way to provide an incentive for shoppers to bring their own shopping bags.

In the more than 80 towns that have passed similar proposals, retailers have generally passed the cost on to consumers or started using paper bags while simultaneously encouraging shoppers to use reusable bags. Most towns also write in exemptions for the plastic bags that are used for fresh produce and other perishable goods.

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Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).