Newtown Borough Council To Consider Single-Use Plastics Ban

NEWTOWN BOROUGH, PA — The Newtown Borough Council is scheduled to vote at its Feb. 13 meeting to advertise a new ordinance that would regulate single-use plastics in the borough.

The public and borough business owners are encouraged to attend Tuesday's council meeting to ask questions, express their concerns and to learn more about the proposed ordinance prior to its formal adoption. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the Chancellor Center in Newtown Borough.

If adopted, retail and restaurant establishments would no longer be allowed to provide customers with single-use plastic bags. Instead, they could offer their customers recyclable paper bags or reusable bags for a fee of at least 15 cents. The fee would be retained by the business.

Also under the ordinance, businesses and restaurants would only be allowed to give out single use plastic straws and utensils upon request. In addition, expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam) food containers would be prohibited.

The regulations would go into effect 180 days following final adoption, which could happen as early as council's March meeting. The delayed implementation would give businesses time to educate their customers about the change.

Under the ordinance, businesses experiencing undue hardship complying with the ordinance will be able to apply for an exemption of up to one year to use up their supplies of plastic bags and Styrofoam containers.

The ordinance is similar to one adopted by Newtown Township in December and scheduled to take effect on April 9 in the township.

If adopted, Newtown Borough would be the latest municipality in Bucks County to pass an ordinance banning single-use plastics. In 2023, Doylestown Borough implemented a ban on single-use plastic bags. Solebury Township has also voted to ban single-use plastic bags along with plastic straws and polystyrene food containers.

Statewide bans are already in place in New York, New Jersey and Delaware. A statewide ban has not been approved by the Pennsylvania legislature. The bans in the Keystone State have instead been concentrated on the municipal level in a concerted attempt to persuade legislators there's support for such a measure statewide.

“This is a bottom to top grassroots effort," said Elaine McCarron, who chairs Newtown Township's Environmental Advisory Council last year. "At this time we have 24 municipalities that have now passed a single-use plastics ordinance and there's between 20 and 30 coming down the pike."

The effort is being spearheaded by PennEnvironment, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization based in Philadelphia that has drafted a model ordinance to assist municipalities in implementing and spreading the bans.

According to PennEnvironment, every year Pennsylvanians use an estimated 4.75 billion single-use plastic bags. These bags are used for just a few minutes and then thrown “away," but there is no “away” says the organization. Plastic bags and other single-use plastics end up in landfills,
incinerators, or in the environment, where they can last for hundreds of years, if not longer, harming wildlife, waterways, and the public health.

An extensive study conducted by PennEnvironment in 2022 found microplastics in waterways throughout Pennsylvania and in concentrated amounts in fish, wildlife and in humans.

"The evidence is mounting that humans not only ingest microplastics, but that those plastics remain in the body and cause harm," says PennEnvironment. "It’s estimated that on average, humans ingest five grams of plastic every week, roughly equivalent to the weight of a credit card
or single-use plastic bag. Microplastics has been found in human blood and even the lungs of living patients. And although not too much is known about the full scope of health effects of microplastics in humans, plastic, and the chemicals it contains, can cause endocrine disruption, hormonal effects, and reproductive disorders."

Since 2018, PennEnvironment said it has helped more than a dozen Pennsylvania municipalities write, introduce, and pass legislation targeting single-use plastics. These ordinances — from
cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to communities like Doylestown and Newtown Township — impact more than 2.4 million Pennsylvanians and could eliminate over 9 million pounds of plastic waste every year, the organization says.