SANDWICH – Two citizen petitions have been filed by Sustainable Practices for the Sandwich May Town Meeting that look to tackle plastic pollution.
The first would ban the commercial sale of single-use plastic water bottles smaller than a gallon.
It will be the fifth time voters have examined the ban, said Executive Director Madhavi Venkatesan.
“Unfortunately, it was rescinded in the fall of 2021 and then last year we refiled the petition article in the fall and it was defeated by 30 votes. We have refiled the exact same petition. That petitioned article is in effect in eight towns on the Cape,”
Towns with a similar ban include Brewster, Chatham, Eastham, Falmouth, Harwich, Orleans, Provincetown, and Wellfleet.
The second petition article would ban single-use plastic for take out, including containers and utensils.
Venkatesan said reusable options should be encouraged instead, where vendors pay for the use of reusable containers and then customers can drop them off at specific locations across the Cape.
“It would be a way of tracking those reusables. A way of ensuring that we are limiting waste and also a way of changing behavior to make everybody accountable for how we consume. That would be what we would recommend.”
Dennis, Mashpee and Sandwich approved similar bans at previous town meetings, but have since rescinded them.
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