What Are The Sources?
Some of the litter on Old Coach Road and other roads leading to the transfer station might be blowing or bouncing out of pickup trucks on their way to the “dump”. Make sure your bags or cans are closed and secured when you drive to the Charlestown Residential Collection Center on Sand Hill Road. Accidental littering is still a crime and technically is punishable by the same fines as intentional littering.
“Nips” are a product designed to break two laws: driving while drinking and littering. “Nips” are the miniature liquor bottles that in the past you got on an airplane or in a hotel room, but they are now sold directly to consumers in liquor stores. They allow the drinker to get a shot of hard liquor while operating a vehicle and then toss the container so they don’t have any incriminating open alcohol container in their vehicle. Some of the roads in Charlestown are loaded with these tiny empty bottles. Chelsea Massachusetts passed a ban on “nip” liquor bottles in 2018. Although the purpose was to reduce litter, an interesting effect was that after one year public drunkenness diminished, alcohol-related ambulance responses were way down, and there was a reduction in the number of people taken into protective custody for alcohol intoxication. Local officials say the litter caused by discarded nip bottles largely disappeared. Attempts to ban nips in other Massachusetts towns, including Bourne, Randolph, Yarmouth, and Barnstable, all failed under pressure from the liquor industry.
Empty beer cans, like empty nips, may make the inebriated vehicle operator nervous about a possible traffic stop and so the cans go flying. Non-alcoholic containers are thrown perhaps to keep the driver’s vehicle interiors clean. Their cars are clean, but the roadsides are a mess.
Litter is a frequent topic on social media and many people report Dunkin Donuts, McDonald’s, and other fast food packaging along our roads. There are no McDonald’s in Charlestown so a town wide education program likely wouldn’t reach those customers, but could we engage these franchise owners to better educate their own patrons and perhaps step in to help us with roadside clean ups?
Plastic bags blow along our roads and hang from trees, but they also end up in the ocean and other waterways where they can cause real harm. Before the pandemic, many local towns had banned plastic shopping bags and the legislature seemed poised to pass a statewide ban. But these efforts to reduce plastic bag waste were suspended with the pandemic as restaurants moved to mostly take out and there was a fear that the virus might survive on reusable cloth bags that shoppers brought to grocery stores. Once the pandemic is behind us, we’ll need to support the statewide ban on single use plastic bags.
The outdoor release of balloons can pose a threat to wildlife and the environment, often ending up in waterways, where animals are attracted by their bright color and mistake them for food, which can cause injury or death to the animal. Sea turtles, dolphins, whales, fish and birds have been reported with balloons in their stomachs and entangled in ribbons and strings, causing death. There are two types of balloons in general use – latex and Mylar. Although latex balloons are considered biodegradable, this will take anywhere from 6 months to 4 years to decompose and they can wreak a lot of havoc before they do. The House Judiciary Committee is holding for further study legislation introduced by Rep. Susan Donovan of Portsmouth that bans the intentional release of balloons into the air. This was supported by the Charlestown Town Council last year. “Holding for further study” usually means it didn’t have the support of leadership. We’ll see if this changes in the new session.
Cigarettes are the most littered item on earth. Disposing of cigarettes on the ground or out of a car is so common that 75 percent of smokers report doing it. Although they are small, discarded cigarette butts do leach toxic chemicals such as arsenic and lead (to name just a few) into the environment and can contaminate water. The toxic chemicals can poison fish, as well as animals who eat the cigarette butts. What is left are the filters. Ninety-eight percent of cigarette filters are made of plastic fibers. Although cigarettes don’t break down naturally, they can gradually decompose depending on environmental conditions like the rain and sun. Estimates on the time it takes vary, but a recent study found that a cigarette butt was only about 38 percent decomposed after two years. If you are a smoker, consider quitting, but in any case, please keep your butts and empty packs and wrappers out of the environment where they can harm other creatures.
One of the many people who voluntarily pick up trash has noted that there is a runoff area built into the road on Rt. 91 near the John (Jay) Cronan River Access. She picked up a full trash bag in that one spot in minutes. All the trash washes off the road down hill into the swampy woods edging the river and from there ends up in the river. She has suggested the state put netting on the slope to catch this. There are other areas where the roads cross streams and litter is being injected into waterways.
A homeowner along Worden’s Pond Road has noted that they see plastic bottles filled with urine among the roadside litter. These could be the same people throwing lots of beer cans on the roadside or it could be laborers working in the area without bathroom breaks. We don’t know of any law that prohibits peeing in a bottle, but throwing it on the roadside is illegal. Contractors whose crews work without port-a-johns or other opportunities for breaks should educate their workers on how to properly dispose of these and other trash – or they could give them a long enough break to get to a bathroom.
2022 Legislation
This act would prohibit the sale of miniature alcoholic beverage containers in Rhode Island. This act would exempt the sale or distribution of miniature alcoholic beverage containers to passengers on commercial railroad trains or aircraft, as long as the containers are collected prior to passengers disembarking off the train or aircraft.
The proposed law is identified as 2022 – H 7064.
Track actions on H 7064
This act would create the “Plastic Waste Reduction Act” designed to reduce the use of plastic bags by retail establishments by offering recyclable bag options and providing penalties for violations.
The proposed law is identified as 2022 – H 7065.
Track actions on H 7065
This act would create a refundable ten cent ($0.10) deposit for non-reusable beverage containers. A four cent ($0.04) handling fee would be paid by distributors.
The proposed law is identified as 2022 – H 7378.
Track actions on H 7378
This act would prohibit a covered establishment from preparing, selling, processing or providing food or beverages in or on a disposable food service container that is composed in whole or in part of polystyrene foam.
The proposed law is identified as 2022 – H 7063.
Track actions on H 7063
This act would enact the extended producer responsibility for packaging act requiring producers of packaging material to make changes to their product design in an effort to reduce the use of non-reusable, non-recyclable and toxic packaging. This act would further create the producer responsibility program requiring producers to make necessary changes to their product design(s) to reduce packaging consumption and waste, and assess fees based on the packaging. This act would further establish the producer responsibility organization to administer the producer responsibility program. The department of environmental management would promulgate rules and regulations to implement the provisions of this chapter.
The proposed law is identified as 2022 – H 7279.
Track actions on H 7279
