Westport Connecticut Votes to Ban Plastic Checkout Bags

The Town of Westport, Connecticut,which is on a tidal estuary, Long Island Sound, voted on September 2, 2008 to ban plastic checkout bags at retail stores, becoming the first town on the East Coast to go plastic bag-free. At the stroke of midnight, the Westport Representative Town Meeting (RTM) approved a resolution, in a 26 to 5 vote (with 1 abstention), giving retailers six months to stop using disposable plastic bags at the checkout. This resolution is the first of its kind east of the Mississippi Kasey Jacobs, Vice-Chair of the Connecticut Surfrider Chapter stated at the public hearing, ““Since their introduction to U.S. supermarkets in the late 1970's plastic bags have become a ubiquitous presence. Forty years is not a long enough time period to consider them irreplaceable though. No one is inferring that Westport can solve this global problem single-handedly, but this ban is about Westport doing its part and helping further spread this global movement. We can not ignore the fact that our oceans are connected. By voting yes tonight the RTM will forever put the Town of Westport on the map as being the first town on the East Coast to become plastic bag free.” The chapter partnered with Citizens Campaign for the Environment on the campaign.