Plastic bag ban moving forward
Courtesy | Flickr/Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism
The Massachusetts State House
The Senate Ways and Means Committee began polling legislation Monday that bans many businesses from providing single-use plastic bags, intending to queue up the bill for a vote Wednesday in the final formal session of the year.
Members were given from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. to vote on whether to favorably report the bill (S 459), which would forbid retail stores from giving customers plastic bags intended for one use and would allow them instead to offer recycled paper or reusable bags for a fee of at least 10 cents, according to a summary of the bill provided to the News Service.
The Ways and Means redraft of the bill, the full text of which was not immediately available Monday, does permit businesses to distribute some plastic bags in packaging or for protective purposes. It also requires retail stores to remit 5 cents to the state for each recycled paper bag sold and prohibits municipalities from imposing any additional regulations at the local level.
More than 120 cities and towns across Massachusetts have already implemented their own versions of bag bans, according to the Sierra Club.
The Senate's plan to vote on the plastic bag ban were first reported by WGBH. The Senate is also scheduled to vote on its version of a proposal (S 2407), already approved by the House, to ban all flavored tobacco products and impose a 75 percent tax on e-cigarettes.
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