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No plastic bags

To Concerned Wayland Citizens:

Transition Wayland and the Wayland Schools Green Tream are spearheading an effort to eliminate plastic bags from the Stop and Shop grocery store that will open in Town Center later this year. We would appreciate your support in showing the company that Wayland is behind this environment- and wildlife-friendly policy. Please email Andrea atandrea@waylandgreenteam.org if you are willing to sign your name or put your organization’s name on the following letter. You may also write your own letter of support. Andrea would also want to hear any critical comments or concerns about this effort. She would appreciate hearing from you by next Monday, September 10th.

Thank you,
Andrea Case, Transition Wayland

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Letter

To the Stop and Shop Corporation

As Wayland welcomes your store to our town, we hope you will make every effort to become an important part of our nature-loving environmentally-conscious community. Your store has already showed an interest in being a good environmental steward. According to an article in the Town Crier, the grocery chain intends to construct a LEED certified building including solar panels, LED parking lot lights and other energy saving upgrades. But there is another important step the company can take to engage their customers in greener shopping while protecting the Sudbury river and National Wildlife area nearby. Please refrain from providing single-use plastic bags.

Plastic grocery bags are a bad habit we need to break. It takes 12 million barrels of oil to produce the more than one hundred billion bags used annually in the U.S. Only 5% of those bags are recycled. Instead, they become litter as lightweight bags blow down streets and into trees. They are a hazard to wildlife through choking, strangulation or starvation. According to Mark Gold, President of Santa Monica Heal the Bay, “The cost of convenience can no longer be at the expense of the environment.”

“Plastic bag litter has become such an environmental nuisance and eyesore,” according to National Geographic News, “that Ireland, Taiwan, South Africa, Australia, and Bangladesh have heavily taxed the totes or banned their use outright.” Here in the U.S., Los Angeles, CA, Aspen, CO, and Portland OR are among many cities that have not only banned plastic bags, but charge a nominal fee for any paper bags taken at checkout. Even here in Massachusetts, there are towns that have passed local regulations banning plastic bags and S&S stores in those towns do not use them.

Wayland shoppers have already illustrated a willingness to avoid plastic shopping bags. The Whole Foods Market in town doesn’t offer them. In an informal lunchtime survey, nearly half the customers brought their own reusable shopping bags or did not take the available paper bags.

We hope that Stop and Shop will take up the challenge to reduce plastic grocery bag use in their Wayland store. An educational campaign and reusable bag give away could go far toward eliminating shopping bag waste. Stop and Shop and the Transition Wayland could work together to encourage shoppers to carry reusable bags. Let’s eliminate the scourge of plastic bags before it comes to Wayland.
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