Portsmouth’s Blue Ribbon Committee on Sustainable Practices is recommending the city council move ahead with an ordinance that would ban single-use plastic bags in Portsmouth.
Committee chairman Bert Cohen presented a letter with the committee’s recommendation to the council at its April 6 meeting. In the letter, Cohen said the ordinance, proposed last month by councilor Brad Lown, fits in with the city’s 2005 master plan goals for sustainability and would reduce the city’s “contribution to the extraction of natural gas and petroleum” from which plastic bags are made.
The ordinance would ban large retailers like grocery stores and pharmacies from using single-use plastic bags. It also prohibits using the bags at any city facility, city-managed concession area, or at events sponsored or permitted by the city. The ordinance doesn’t cover plastic bags without handles or dog waste bags.
City resident Mark Brighton launched a petition drive against the ordinance when Lown proposed it in early March. Similar ordinances have recently been passed in Newburyport, Mass. and Portland, Maine.
“It makes sense to me to limit the availability of an item that causes environmental damage,” Lown said in an interview with The Sound in March. “This is a small effort in one place to try to limit the availability of the bags.” — Larry Clow