Your positive response to last month’s column “Less stuff = less waste” has been surprisingly enthusiastic. Hopefully, that will translate to a holiday season with just a bit less waste and in turn a bit less plastic in our oceans and landfills. This month we explore what less consumption means in real terms throughout Hopewell Valley.
Before I share the numbers, I’ll continue my custom of discussing conservation by first exploiting an obscure media reference. Therefore, like the characters in Seinfeld, my holiday celebration of choice will be Festivus — For the rest of us. Let’s begin with the customary “Airing of Grievances.”
Want to know what really chaps my hide? When single-use takeout bags are used for literally less than a minute. Ever go to the drive-through donut shop, and once you receive your order, you drive 10 feet past the window to the drive thru garbage can, so you can remove your takeout items and throw out the bag?
Worse yet, ever go into a store to buy one item and say, “Thank you, I don’t need a bag.” And the cashier hands you the item… then throws the bag you didn’t use in the trash. Thus defeating the purpose of skipping the bag.
Well, I am pleased to report that this holiday season is the last year that I’ll have those particular complaints, because it will soon be illegal for stores to give out these bags. A New Jersey law passed in November 2020 gives us a nudge in the right direction.
For the final Festivus tradition, “Feats of Strength,” we will skip the wrestling, and instead cut about 25 thousand tons of single-use bags throughout New Jersey. Here’s how.
The New Jersey Single-Use Bag and Straw Ban phases out single use straws, takeout bags, and polystyrene containers. Phase one began on November 4th 2021 with your favorite restaurants only providing single use plastic straws upon request.
I’ve been to other states where the default is for the consumer to request a bag. Yet New Jersey takes it one step further. When Phase 2 begins this May, stores may no longer provide single use bags –no paper nor plastic. Better get used to bringing your own.
Paul Kinney, Hopewell Township Environmental Committee member and math-nerd extraordinaire, calculated what the ban means to Hopewell Valley. You can find his complete research on the Hopewell Township website.
According to Kinney’s calculations, once the Phase 2 takeout bag component is implemented, New Jersey will effectively eliminate about 2.5 pounds of plastic and 3 pounds of paper per person each year. The associated table includes the annual reductions at the Hopewell Valley, Mercer County, and state levels.
Across New Jersey, this means a reduction of almost 2 billion bags per year. “The impacts of just this one law in one state will make significant improvements at the local and state levels with benefits felt beyond our borders,” Kinney says.
Those are some pretty impressive numbers and worth my Festivus celebration.
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In other holiday celebrations, I attended the opening of Grounds For Sculpture’s new exhibit Night Forms with my family. It was an amazing after-hours combination of Art, Nature, Lights and Sound. I highly recommend the experience. It runs through the end of February.
The Grounds For Sculpture is a partner of FoHVOS and the Outdoor Equity Alliance and is committed to making the outdoor art and nature more accessible to underserved communities. Gary Schneider, Executive Director, announced at the event that they are sharing tickets for this opportunity to many of their equity focused partners.
Previously, the Grounds For Sculpture hosted our interns for a private field trip. Now GFS sponsors are supporting an opportunity for our interns and their families to attend Night Forms. If they enjoy it half as much as I did, it will unquestionably be a fantastic experience.
The tagline of the Outdoor Equity Alliance is “Mercer County Nature For All” and we salute the Grounds For Sculpture for taking steps to ensure Art & Nature for All.
Enjoy your holidays and watch for more Nature in the Valley in 2022.
Reduction of takeout bags expected due to recent changes in New Jersey law. (Chart provided by Paul Kinney, Hopewell Township Environmental Committee.,
