L-S students Lucy Bergeron (left) and Anjuli Das with a single day’s worth of discarded water bottles at the high school.
This year, the eighth-graders’ group assisted by Town Clerk Susan Brooks and Town Moderator Sarah Cannon Holden is hoping to have Lincoln voters approve funds for two portable, 15-foot aluminum benches with backrests and shelves for use by sports teams who play on the fields next to Codman Pool. The benches would cost $800 to $1,200 apiece, according to Maria Hamandi, one of the students.
“A lot of times, [athletes’] personal belongings get in the dirt, including the mouth guards, which we find pretty unsanitary,” Hamandi said. The bench’s shelves will keep phones and other items off the ground, which will be especially helpful during rain (“they don’t only play when it’s beautiful weather outside,” she noted).
Other students involved in the 2017 citizens’ petition effort are Max Borden, Maya David, Achla Gandhi, Sophie Herant, Rhea Karty, Sarah Lammert and Dasha Trosteanetchi.
The Environmental Club at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High school is proposing two warrant articles in both Lincoln and Sudbury (though Sudbury’s Annual Town Meeting is not until May 1). One measure seeks to ban single-use plastic check-out bags at supermarkets and other retail stores. Thin-film plastic bags without handles that are used for meat, produce, newspapers, dry cleaning, etc. would not be affected.
The other measure would ban the retail sale of plastic single-use water bottles in town. Specifically targeted are polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles of 1 liter (34 ounces) or less containing noncarbonated, unflavored drinking water. Bottles could still be given away, however. The ban, if approved, can also be lifted if there is ever an emergency affecting the availability and/or quality of drinking water to residents.
L-S junior Lucy Bergeron of Lincoln wrote the bottle article based on one that was passed in Concord in 2012. “We spoke to people there and they say it’s going pretty well,” she said.
Several other cities and towns including Cambridge have banned supermarket check-out bags. In that city, whose law went into effect a year ago, customers must bring their own reusable bags for their groceries or purchase paper bags for 10 cents apiece. The Lincoln proposal says stores may charge a fee to recoup the cost of providing paper bags (or selling reusable bags) but does not specify a price.
In time-honored Lincoln political tradition, Bergeron surveyed residents at the transfer station about how inconvenient it would be to stop using plastic water bottles and how important the environment was to them.
“I got pretty positive feedback,” she said. “Most people said [disposable] water bottles are not that important to them; they use them mostly if they’re traveling or don’t have a better alternative.”
Bergeron and Lincoln freshman Anjuli Das noted that fossil fuels are used to manufacture and transport plastic bottles. Also, “some people seem to think that bottled water is better, but often it’s just tap water,” Bergeron said.
Last year, the Environmental Club collected the plastic water bottles discarded in a single day at the high school and used them to build a tower showing how much plastic they used (the tower still stands in one of the school lobbies).
Those in favor of banning single-use plastic grocery bags note that they pose significant environmental hazards because they do not readily biodegrade and can harm animals and fish that ingest them. Discarded bags are also harder to recycle than other products (the Lincoln transfer station does not accept them, for example), and they can wind up as unsightly litter and clog storm drains.
Acting on last year’s eighth-grade citizens’ petition, residents approved the purchase of a hydration stations for the Lincoln School’s Reed Gym. Students can use them to refill their reusable plastic water bottles with filtered tap water as well as get a quick drink, as with traditional water fountains.