By Trisha O’Hagan
Lincoln has an exciting opportunity on May 15 at our annual Town Meeting to drastically reduce our reliance on single-use plastics.
The Lincoln-Sudbury Environmental Club and Mothers Out Front–Lincoln have submitted articles proposing Styrofoam, polystyrene, and plastic straw bans. From start to finish, these plastics pollute our air, water, land, and bodies, and once created they never go away.
There is also an article calling for a 10-cent checkout bag charge to encourage the use of reusable bags over single-use paper bags.
Lincoln has no ability to recycle Styrofoam. It goes into our trash and is incinerated in North Andover, Mass. These incinerators, while producing some electricity, also pollute their nearby communities with dioxins, mercury, and other contaminants. And disproportionally, these incinerators are located in environmental justice communities.
Lincoln would join 51 other Massachusetts cities and towns in banning polystyrene (including our neighbors in Sudbury, Wayland, Concord, and Lexington). Hopefully, as more towns pass these bans, it will apply pressure to our state legislature to pass statewide bans.
We need your help! Please attend Town Meeting and support these articles.
Join with others working towards sustainable/zero waste policies for our town. This Town of Lincoln website has a full presentation of the articles, or contact Trisha O’Hagan at PMOKiwi@comcast.net for more information. Thank you.
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So glad Mothers Out Front is leading this. I will definitely vote yes.