AMHERST – Amherst could soon join Northampton and 15 other Massachusetts communities that are prohibiting single-use plastic bags at retail stores and restaurants.
The Select Board on Monday voted 3-1, with one abstention, to support a petition coming before annual Town Meeting banning stores from using non-biodegradable, single-use plastic bags beginning Jan. 1.
Members Douglas Slaughter, Andrew Steinberg and James Wald voted to recommend the petition, Select Board Chairwoman Alisa Brewer voted against the measure, and Constance Kruger abstained from the vote.
In an email, Brewer said she had many reasons for voting against recommending adopting the bylaw, including expressing concerns about potential uneven enforcement and questioning how effective the town’s prohibition on polystyrene foam has been.
“I don’t believe the proposed bylaw is necessary in order to discourage the use of some types of plastic bags, and I have concerns about how it will be fairly enforced given limited resources,” Brewer said.
Kruger declined to explain why she abstained.
Petitioner Kevin Hollerbach, a member of the Recycling and Refuse Management Committee and a graduate student in sustainability science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said the objective is not to hurt businesses, but to encourage customers to bring their own bags to stores when shopping.
“Obviously the real goal of this ban is to encourage consumers to bring their own reusable bags, which are often sturdier, they can carry more items and they are washable, as compared to regular single-use plastic bags,” Hollerbach said.
The bylaw language reads that “thin-film single-use plastic bags shall not be distributed, used or sold for checkout or other purposes at retail, retail food or service retail establishments within the town of Amherst.” The ban would be for bags that are 3/1000-inch thick or less.
The Hitchcock Center for the Environment and Atkins Farms Country Market are among local supporters of the measure, he said.
The Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce is not taking a position because it has has not surveyed its members, said interim executive director Jerry Guidera.
“In general, we understand the environmental reasons for the ban and support those principles,” Guidera said.
The revised bylaw, with amendments proposed by the town’s Board of Health, no longer gives the health board the power to shut down a business for noncompliance, but instead it can impose fines for each day a business is providing the plastic bags to customers.
“If the Board of Health determines an obvious violation from a retailer without a deferment they will be fined $100 per day until the violation is corrected,” Hollerbach said.
But Hollerbach does not expect that to happen, observing that the bylaw gives the opportunity for a one-year deferment for a business that would suffer an undue hardship.
Hollerbach said the bylaw will be mostly complaint driven because the town has no solid waste and recycling coordinator, and it is uncertain how much time the health department will have to deploy its employees for enforcement.
He added that there have been few issues in the more than four months a similar ordinance has been in effect in Northampton.
“It’s easy enough to make the switch, and many businesses in town have already begun in anticipation of the bylaw passing,” Hollerbach said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
