By Joanna Moore
Eliminating disposables in Cape Cod won’t be a day at the beach.
In 2019, economist Dr. Madhavi Venkatesan started Sustainable Practices, a nonprofit with the goal of banning single-use plastics across Cape Cod. In each of Cape Cod’s fifteen towns, which makes up Barnstable County, they began by asking the government to stop purchasing, distributing, or selling single-use water bottles for plain, flat water, which makes up the largest portion of the bottled beverage market.[i] The idea behind the municipal ban was to send the message that taxpayer dollars should not be used to buy plastic water bottles, and that they should not be sold on government property. Venkatesan considered this a strategic element of the organization—“the government does not think [plastic water bottles] are healthy.” By 2021, all fifteen Cape towns passed the municipal ban. By 2024, another nine towns in Massachusetts have passed the ban.[ii] On September 23, 2023, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey signed Executive Order No. 619 (EO619): Eliminating the Purchase by the Executive Department of Single-Use Plastic Bottles.[iii]
Plastic production is on track to account for 20 percent of fossil fuel consumption by 2050.[iv] Since 2010, plastic water bottle consumption has increased by 40 percent. The popularity of single-use plastic water bottles was a ploy by beverage companies to combat falling profits as consumers discovered just how unhealthy soft drinks are. They convinced us to pay a 200 percent markup on mostly tap water by marketing convenience. Venkatesan wants people to see the full costs of these bottles, both on our wallets and our environment. “The whole point has been to convince people that convenience consumption has a price.”
Hingham, MA’s single-use water bottle ban went into effect January 1, 2024. A page on the town’s website proudly calls Hingham an “environmentally-conscious community,” and notes “The best alternative is a refillable water bottle, and water is easily accessible, safe, and available through hydration stations, bubblers, and the tap.” Providing alternatives is important, especially when our short collective memory makes it seem like plastic water bottles have always existed.
Sustainable Practices began pursuing a commercial ban in 2020, restricting purchase and sale of plain water bottles by any business. COVID-19 has posed some challenges. Initially thirteen towns were on board, then three rescinded. Now, they are still working on the additional five. The approach of implementing town by town is mostly practical. “Town government is as small as you can get. They don’t want to be told by citizens what to do. The government in Cape Cod is fairly split between political parties. What’s interesting is the physical separation from the mainland. You’ve changed what can be sold.”
In Massachusetts, policy can be changed by citizen’s petitions. Citizens can file to have items voted on by the town. While there is still a legislative process, the citizens’ petition allows organizations like Sustainable Practices to circumvent having a councilmember present and sponsor a bill. Measures are voted on in an annual town meeting. Laws must include enforcement details, which in this case, is a written warning and subsequent fines.[v]
The citizen’s petition is a double-edged sword. As easily as new laws can be passed, they can be repealed. Since government participation is typically low, there have been instances where bans have passed in a small meeting and then repealed in a better attended meeting. For example, In October 2021, in Mashpee, 215 people attended the town meeting and the ban passed narrowly by two votes. By April 2022, a vote to repeal the ban passed 221-155—more people voted to repeal it than total voters in the first round.[vi]
It is unclear what sparked the increase in attendance. According to local publication the Barnstable Patriot, the town’s operating budget was discussed in October 2022, which could be the culprit. However, there is also evidence of the plastics industry catching wind of Cape Cod’s progress. An article written for the Washington Times by Richard Berman, a plastics industry lobbyist, seeks to undermine the ban, calling it “ineffective” and a “scam,” even citing that alternatives like cartons and cans are worse for the environment. Berman’s comments are in line with the long history of the plastics industry intentionally misleading consumers. The propaganda of recycling as an effective way to address plastic’s climate impacts, started by plastics industry organization Keep America Beautiful in the 1970s, is one of the reasons the convenience economy has persisted for so long, but it does not have to be this way.
Venkatesan and her team set their sights on plastic cutlery in 2023. On the first round of filing, it passed in two towns and failed in five. Venkatesan called the failures “a big setback,” citing leadership and burnout as a reason for the failure. “Persistence of any organization is reliant upon its leader. When the leader gets burnt out, then it’s about what new organization will come into place. [There is] not one nonprofit that can do what its original leader did.”
Sustainable Practices tried injecting new energy into the commercial ban and plastic cutlery projects, hiring more young people to pursue the effort in couple more towns. Even as much as they had been prepped, they became susceptible to pushback. “You get really attached to the people you see and they become more influential. The loudest voices aren’t necessarily representative. Age is a marketing mechanism; it may not effect change,” says Venkatesan. Still, they are recruiting new people in many of the towns.
It seems that the political reality of the ban is just starting to sink in. A restaurant in Brewster was quoted by NBC Boston as opposing the ban, but looking closer what’s discussed is an implementation issue. Co-owner of JT’s Restaurant, Carol Noyes, expresses that reusable containers may not be appropriate for certain items they sell, like ice cream. “I can’t see someone riding on the bike trail with their utensils with them, in their spandex,” Noyes said. “Where are they gonna put it?” After COVID, many restaurants on the Cape increased their takeout business, and many began using disposables for dine-in. Venkatesan thinks this is an opportunity to pressure legislation. For example, sit-down, or quick service, like ice cream, should require reusable materials.
Sustainable Practices has other ideas for implementation—there are businesses providing reusable takeout containers that can be picked up and dropped off. The idea is that the reusable containers would be sold to restaurants for the same price that they are currently paying for disposables. Wastewater would increase, and perhaps emissions from travel, but this switch away from disposables could trigger upstream impacts on production and remove the public health impacts of plastic leaching into food. They would have to phase this in slowly, with support from the Chamber of Commerce on the Cape. Another option is requiring diners to bring their own containers. Either way, it is a significant shift in operating practices.
Pushback from restaurants and Sustainable Practices’ response speaks to the core purpose of the ban, which is to challenge the convenience economy that devalues the health of people and the planet.
Plastic bans are not the only legislation seeking to upend the unchecked production and consumption of disposables. China banned “recyclable” plastic imports, which removed the US’s secondary market. “Extended Producer Responsibility” bills are popping up in different states,[vii] requiring producers of “recyclable” items to pay for and facilitate the process themselves by establishing nonprofits and building new recycling capacity. These laws are intended to remove the recycling burden from municipalities and force producers to reckon with the materials they use.
Plastic bans and ERP laws remind us that technology and economics have only been weaponized to further environmental degradation. Venkatesan says, “We are in a system where we serve the economy. The economy should serve human well-being. We have normalized outcomes of growth – income and consumption. That is not well-being.”
Endnotes
[i] Global News Wire. “Bottled Water Market Projected to Soar to USD 551.2 Billion by 2033 | Remarkable CAGR of 5.3%.” December 12, 2023. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/12/12/2794578/0/en/Bottled-Water-Market-Projected-to-Soar-to-USD-551-2-Billion-by-2033-Remarkable-CAGR-of-5-3.html
[ii] 1420 WBSM. “Two Dozen Massachusetts Communities Now Ban Bottled Water Sales.” April 12, 2024. https://wbsm.com/massachusetts-communities-ban-bottled-water-sales/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
[iii] Massachusetts State Website Blog. “Massachusetts: First State to Enact Procurement Ban on Single-Use Plastic Bottles.” December 5, 2023. https://www.mass.gov/news/massachusetts-first-state-to-enact-procurement-ban-on-single-use-plastic-bottles#:~:text=ON%20SEPTEMBER%2021%2C%202023%2C%20MASSACHUSETTS,of%20Single%2DUse%20Plastic%20Bottles.
[iv] Center for International Environmental Law. “Fueling Plastics: New Research Details Fossil Fuel Role in Plastics Proliferation.” September 21, 2017. https://www.ciel.org/news/fueling-plastics/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CExxon%20is%20both%20the%20gas,total%20oil%20consumption%20by%202050.
[v] “Guide to Citizens’ Petitions for Town Meetings Weston, Massachusetts.”
[vi] The Barnstable Patriot. “Mashpee voters approve $64.5M operating budget, reverse plastic bottle ban.” May 3, 2022. https://www.barnstablepatriot.com/story/news/2022/05/03/mashpee-ma-voters-town-meeting-budget-approved-plastic-bottle-ban-rejected/9597931002/
[vii] New York Times. “Maine Will Make Companies Pay for Recycling. Here’s How It Works.” July 21, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/climate/maine-recycling-law-EPR.html
Joanna Moore is a graduate student in the urban planning program, focusing on utility infrastructure and climate resiliency.
