Nantucket is saying no to "single-use" plastics. And nearly every resident, visitor, and business operating on the island will be affected by the upcoming ban on the sale of plastics intended for just one use.
Island voters approved the ban, to go into effect on June 1, 2020, at a special Nantucket Town Meeting in fall of 2018. Forbidden products include plastic straws, plates and eating utensils, drinking cups and lids, and plain water in PET/PETE containers. Those plastic “yokes” holding together bottled and canned drinks, which can end up strangling wildlife, are also banned. All eateries will need a substitute for plastics, and retail stores will be barred from selling single-use items likes cups, forks, spoons, and knives. The town is letting business owners and consumers know what’s involved in the island's ban on single-use plastics tomorrow at 6 pm in the Community Room of Nantucket's Public Safety Facility at 4 Fairgrounds Road. It’s a good thing for Nantucket.
Plastics like rolling stones
Much has been reported and written about the great amount of debris showing up in earth's oceans from the disposal of non-biodegradable or slow-to-degrade plastics. In its excellent ongoing series, National Geographic poses the question simply as Planet or Plastics? Micro-particle plastics are entering our food chain, in amounts that researchers call "staggering." Increasingly, biological scientists are discovering fired plastics washing up on shorelines looking like natural rocks. These "pyroplastics" have appeared on shorelines in Great Britain, Hawaii, Antartica, and elsewhere. A single-use plastics ban on Nantucket might seem to be a minuscule effort compared to the hugeness of the problem. But it's a start.