Plastic Bag Ban LB Twp. Great- NJ Still Needs A Law

Today, Long Beach Township Banned Plastic Bags. Shoppers must now bring their own reusable bags or pay a fee for paper bags, according to a recently adopted township ordinance. If you don’t have a reusable bag, you will pay a small fee for recycled paper bags. The newly adopted ordinance includes any business that engages in the retail sale of goods and products, such as pharmacies, supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores, clothing stores, surf shops, food marts and food service establishments.

“Plastic bags have now become a menace to the environment. We applaud Long Beach Township for their full ban on plastic bags. It will help reduce plastic pollution in our environment and recycling programs are not effective alone. There is a very small market for the plastic films used in these bags and it often costs more to transport the bags than they are worth. At the end of the day, a fee for plastic bags will help drive down our plastic use however it is not as effective as a full ban,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “Plastic is a threat to our waterways and wildlife and a full ban will go a long way in protecting our environment, reducing fossil fuel use and making our state cleaner. This is why New Jersey should implement a statewide ban on plastic bags.”

Plastics are not only an eye sore but can cause devastating impacts to marine life and even our health. It has been found that around 100,000 marine animals and 1 million birds die each year from plastics, whether it is ingestion or entanglement. When marine animals ingest these plastics, they can enter the food chain putting human health at risk because of the toxins in the plastic. The production of plastic bag requires both petroleum and natural gas. With soaring gas prices and the dangers of fracking this use once and toss is not worth using these resources especially when the United States is estimated to go through 100 billion plastic bags a year. Plastic bags also affect water quality by clogging storm drains and filling up detention basins.

“There are major environmental impacts from plastic bags. They are killing birds and sea mammals making our beaches and waterways look unsightly. Pieces of plastic are eaten by wildlife which prevents food digestion and causes the animal to starve to death. We are creating a floating island bigger than Texas. Animals, especially birds, get strangled and suffocated by these bags. Many of them ingest them as well, often fatally,” said Tittel. “Plastic bags are made from natural gas. More plastic bags mean more pipelines, more fracking, and more fossil fuel use.”

Plastic bags themselves can take up to 1,000 years to decompose and they never decompose completely just becoming microscopic pieces of plastic. These minuscule pieces of plastic can leach toxins into the soil, groundwater, and enter our food chain if eaten. The Pacific Gyre or Pacific Garbage Patch is a growing plastic island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where billions of pounds of garbage are floating.

“It is up to each one of us to prevent this plastic bag calamity from getting worse by banning plastic bags that aren’t biodegradable. By reducing how many bags are used, we will see less litter and less plastic bags harming our wildlife and ecosystems. We will also see a decrease in greenhouse gasses that come with creating these bags,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “Since we have become a use once and throwaway society New Jersey needs to start looking into ways to combat this plastic pollution and improve our recycling programs. The Borough of Longport has already banned plastic bags and Point Pleasant Beach’s Council are considering to approve an ordinance that will ban plastic bags. A fee on a town by town ban on plastic bags will get us nowhere. Towns will be challenged in court by industry and supermarkets. That’s why we need the legislature and Governor Murphy to pass a statewide ban on plastic bags.”