Christina Dubin: "Policies & Actions to Rethink Plastics"
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This document discusses policies and actions for reducing single-use plastics. It notes that waste management costs are increasing for municipalities and that plastic pollution disproportionately impacts BIPOC communities. It advocates for varied local policies as an effective way to get states to standardize policies, and outlines New Hampshire's establishment of a working group to study recycling and waste management issues and make recommendations. The document encourages municipal action on source reduction like bans and fees while the working group provides guidance to the state.
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Christina Dubin: "Policies & Actions to Rethink Plastics"
- 1. Christina Dubin, NH Chapter Volunteer Secretary & Rise Above Plastics Coordinator Rethinking Plastics: Policies and Actions For Source Reduction of Single Use Plastics photos: @wildlife_by_yuri
- 2. What’s the Policy Problem? Waste management, increasing costs for municipalities
- 3. 3 BIPOC disproportionately bear the burden at every stage at every stage “Environmental racism refers to the excessive impact that environmental hazards, such as plastic pollution, have on Black, Indigenous, and People Of Color (BIPOC) in this country. This imbalance calls for urgent anti- racism action in order to bring about environmental justice.” -Rachael Coccia Surfrider Foundation Plastic Pollution Manager
- 4. • Home Rule (or combo) vs. Dillon's Rule • In Dillon's Rule (or combo) states, varied local polices are especially important to get legislators to want to standardize at the state level • No new policy is better than BAD policy! What’s the Solution? Why Local Action? Varied local action manifests into STATE law https://www.plasticbaglaws.org/bagmaps VA
- 5. 5 “Our state must adjust its laws and programs to reflect the new economic, environmental and public health realities of solid waste management”. HB617, 2019: Established the Committee to Study Recycling Streams and Solid Waste Management in NH which recommended a 5-year study group consisting of reps from all stakeholders. HB413, 2021: Established the above working group New Hampshire Solid Waste Working Group 1st report due: 11/30/22 Final report due: 11/1/26 Take varied municipal action while working groups provide guidance to the state. Source reduction = bans, fees… Authority in 149-M
- 6. 6 Alyssa Duncan, 2019 Policy Advocacy Union Leader, 2019 Support REuse and youth leadership!
- 7. Christina Dubin, NH Chapter Volunteer Secretary, Rise Above Plastics Coordinator campaigns@nh.surfrider.org THANKYOU!
Editor's Notes
- walk through municipal action for source reduction of single use plastics I will be a Ten Towns resource leader for single use plastic policy drawing upon my experiences in Portsmouth and with the Surfrider NH Chapter If you aren’t already familiar with SF an activist network that engages in plastic reduction, ocean protection, beach access, coastal preservation and clean water note: all these photos are from our beach clean ups and taken by chapter volunteer Brian Yurasits who has plastic pollution photography available for free on his website
- First though, let’s walk through what the problem is in NH… “tragedy of the commons” If you haven’t yet encountered this phrase yet, was coined by ecologist Garret Hardin, essentially says that if everyone acts according to their own self interest, versus taking into consideration the interest of others, there will be a depletion of whatever common pool resource is being used. The tragedy we are focusing on, at a local level, is that our state is running out of landfill space for our waste which is costing municipalities and ultimately taxpayers increasingly more in tipping fees and transport costs Blue line is project waste disposal capacity pink line is projected waste disposal need Assuming the several existing landfills close as anticipated and the waste stream continues at its current rate, NH DES projects a shortfall of 120,000 tons in annual disposal capacity by 2025, and 10 times that by 2034 Also important to note that about 50% of our waste landfilled in NH comes from out of state Recycling is also costing municipalities more due to namely to China no longer accepting our contaminated bales of recycling B/c of this Material Recovery Facility contracts had to increase the cost of services for municipalities which use single stream recycling The higher cost has lead to several municipalities including Hookset and Franklin, to significantly modify and decrease their collection programs which is worrisome as recycling remains an important economic and waste diversion tool, that we don’t want to lose while domestic recycling infrastructure ramps up and the market recovers. A significant portion of waste is from single use items and many single-use products are composed partly or entirely of plastic A majority of litter removed from Seacoast beaches by our New Hampshire Chapter volunteers are s/u plastic items. NH does not include waste characterization data in its biennial reporting, we can estimate the amount of plastic in residential municipal solid waste (MSW) by referring to the national average of 12.2% which is similar to what Rhode Island, Vermont and Connecticut have reported out sig piece of the pie which we can cut down
- our motivation is not just the financial or health impacts to residents of NH of course the issue of plastic waste does not stop at borders environmental issues are intersectional Plastic production plants, waste incinerators and landfills are all cited in low income and marginalized communities, placing the burden on those most vulnerable
- So what can we do and why act locally? Why not wait for state level policy change? Because we’ve seen that local efforts have created the case for support of statewide law and state laws will build the case for federal policies Since current extreme partisanship at federal level is limiting good intersectional environmental policies right now local action and policy is the best approach to keep building the case from the bottom up The challenge for municipalities in NH is due to Dillon's Rule which limits what localities can do without enabling legislation from the state Vs. Home Rule states like CT and mainly Home Rule states like Maine where localities are allowed to legislate in all areas except any specifically identified by state government The map on the left shows varied single-use bag bans in Maine in 2018 prior to a state level bag ban law Importantly the state bag ban includes a fee on paper bags so that the policy doesn't just encourage the use of another single-use product There are bad single-use policies and EPR policies so its important to rely on best practices when forming them or showing support for any bills The image on the right shows dark blue states where state bag legislation has been enacted across the US, light blue shows where there are local laws in place and shades of orange are states where a range of preemption legislation exists which prevents localities from adopting single-use policies Preemption is something we really want to stay ahead of
- Back to this idea of enabling legislation We, the NH Chapter, do believe we have inherent authority to take municipal action for source reduction through 149-M, our state solid waste regulations; We have two legal opinions that support this Portsmouth has also tested this authority with 2 ordinances which I'll discuss on the next slide If you look to our waste hierarchy on the right, source reduction is at the top Each municipality in NH is given the responsibility to plan out source reduction methods In 2019 a bill passed that created a Committee to Study Recycling Streams and Solid Waste Management in NH and that committee issued a report that recommended policy change That recommendation led to the passage of a house bill which created the NH Solid Waste Working Group this group consists of members representing both public and private stakeholders from all sectors of waste management They're charged with assisting DES with planning for New Hampshire's solid waste future An initial report due by the end of this coming November and final report due in 2026 it would not go unnoticed by this working group that municipal actions are being taken around plastic waste and could shape the report recommendations
- I’ll leave you with an example of local policy action which is listed within the toolkit Surfrider NH chapter was involved for many years working with City councilor Josh Denton to get a s/u bag ban in Portsmouth After years of not gaining headway, Councilor Denton switched gears by moving away from bags being the focus of the policies and crafted what ultimately ended up as 2 single-use ordinances one banning polystyrene city-wide and the other prohibiting single-use plastic cups, bags, containers and straws on city property ordinances were enacted December 2020 but not enforceable until this past fall so the current council will be addressing that and we in Portsmouth are fortunate to have Josh back on Council PHS Environmental Change Organization was instrumental in the passage of those ordinances club members demonstrated support in past campaigns and their persistence in showing up, yet again to deliver eloquent pleas to council finally swayed the Mayor Youth involvement and leadership is instrumental in environmental issues and this is why starting a school environmental club is one of the engagement actions in the toolkit
- I’ll close by saying thank you to all that put many, many hours into this Toolkit and to everyone in the audience for turning out to hear about it please feel free to reach out to me to talk about local policy action via Ten Towns Toolkit or through SF NH Chapter