HYANNIS – As multiple Cape communities adopt single-use plastic water bottle bans to protect local water resources and reduce fossil fuels dependency; Governor Maura Healey has announced two new policies that she says will be “groundbreaking” in the effort to preserve coastlines.
She said she will sign an executive order setting biodiversity conservation goals for the next three decades, including an additional order banning state agencies from purchasing single-use water bottles.
Massachusetts would be the first state in the nation to adopt such a policy.
Several local leaders, including Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce CEO Paul Niedzwiecki, said that the Cape’s water bodies and coastlines are integral for its tourism-based economy.
Healey’s plastic-reduction plans are in addition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions goals for 2050, which heavily rely on the burgeoning offshore wind industry developing off the Cape and Islands coast.
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