Help our oceans, ban single-use plastic bags

Beginning Oct. 1, Norwalk residents will no longer be able to recycle plastic bags, thin plastic wrap, bubble wrap, polystyrene, single-use coffee cups or plastic straws. The updated recycling collection list mirrors the ban on plastic imports from the United States into China.

It also comes at a time when some local businesses are trying mightily to switch from plastic straws to paper ones, a campaign that began years ago but that has recently picked up steam. Unfortunately, it has also led to shortages, delays, and higher prices for bars and restaurants like Ripka’s Beach Café at Calf Pasture, whose owner, Clyde Ripka, was forced to pay nearly 12 times as much for paper straws as he did for plastic ones.

Also in East Norwalk, Harbor Harvest owner Bob Kunkel is selling straws made of pasta at cost. The manufacturer of the “Ultimate Straw” donates $1 per sale to ocean research.

Americans use 500 million straws a day, with a useful life of 20 minutes and a biodegradable life span of 200 years. Skip the Plastic Norwalk, a group of environmentally minded citizens, has been educating businesses and consumers on the disastrous consequences: growing masses of plastic debris in the world’s oceans that are killing 100 million marine animals a year. So far, at least 20 restaurants have signed on, replacing plastic straws with paper or reusable ones. The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk has eliminated not only plastic straws, but also water bottles, lids, and cups, replacing the latter with paper cups produced from renewable resources.

As laudable as these efforts are, it will take more than a couple dozen businesses to stem the tide of deadly waste. It will take all of us. And there’s no better time than the present to take action, with the city updating its single-stream recycling collection list.

We therefore call on the Common Council to enact a ban on single-use plastic bags, to be followed, we hope, by a ban on straws, coffee stirrers, and the like. Westport became the first town in the state to ban plastic bags at retail checkouts in 2009. Greenwich will follow suit this fall. Discussions are under way in Darien and New Canaan, among others. As a coastal community especially, Norwalk needs to stop contributing to the problem and start trying to help solve it.

Environmentalists are debating which there will be more of — plastic or fish — in the world’s oceans by 2050. Already, sea animals are starving, having filled their stomachs with our indigestible trash, mistaking it for food. The plastic bags, bottles, utensils and straws that are killing them will outlive them by hundreds of years. Meanwhile, store checkouts continue to distribute single-use plastic bags at a rate of 2 million per minute.

A city ordinance to stop this is long overdue. We look to the council for action.

Which will there be more of — plastic or fish — in the world’s oceans by 2050?