2015 is a Promising Year for Sustainability

If you are looking for a meaningful New Years’ resolution, consider using reusable tote bags for groceries, drinking water only from reusable bottles, or composting with Mr. Fox.

2015 is a promising year for sustainability on the seacoast. Support for a well-drafted, legally-sound ordinance banning single-use, carry-out, plastic bags is gaining supporters’ signatures to go in front of the City Council and make Portsmouth the first municipality in New Hampshire to keep pace with the rest of the country. Meanwhile in March, Rye will vote on a ballot initiative similar to Pay As You Throw, a fairer solid waste disposal program that saves taxpayers’ money by incentivizing reusing, recycling, and composting.

The Moffatt-Ladd House recently showed the documentary Divide in Concord to raise awareness of a single-use water bottle ban effort. Banning the sale of what is often just bottled, purified, municipal water reduces petroleum expended and carbon emitted during bottle manufacturing, and the environmental impacts from their disposal.

Last November, the Blue Ribbon Committee on Sustainable Practices proposed banning the sale of single-use, 21-ounce or less, water bottles on City property. San Francisco bans the sale of such bottles at schools, parks, and sidewalks. This encourages drinking from reusable bottles or water fountains on public property, just like we did prior the recent disposable water bottle trend.

Ring out the old ways and bring in the new this year by making a conscious effort as individuals and as communities to make the seacoast sustainable.