More than 40 environmental groups are calling for the state to once again require supermarkets to take bottle redemptions. They also want reusable shopping bags to be allowed in stores again.
Gov. Charlie Baker announced the ban on reusable shopping bags in March, put in place out of concern that they could be bringing in the virus and infecting workers. Baker also announced a suspension of all local bans on stores giving out plastic bags to customers. There's no state-wide ban on those bags, but a number of cities and towns have their own prohibitions.
The state has also stopped enforcing the state bottle bill, which requires markets to serve as redemption centers for bottles and cans. The primary goal there was mostly to free up workers to focus on the sudden surge in demand for groceries.
On Thursday, two months later, the environmental groups sent a letter to the heads of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Public Health, saying it's time to reinstate the rules.
"Now, we should be able to, number one, get back to business as usual and redeem those bottles and cans that people have stacked in their basements and in their garages,” said Kirstie Pecci of the Conservation Law Foundation’s Zero Waste Program. “And then, number two, we know that it's time to stop using single-use plastic. It's not protecting us from the virus."
Pecci said there are a range of environmental concerns about what happens to all those plastic bags. If the bags are put in single-stream recycling bins, they can foul up machines that sort recyclable material, significantly adding to the cost of recycling. And, she said, if redeemable bottles and cans are put in those bins, it also adds to the recycling expense for cities and towns.
Brian Houghton of the Massachusetts Food Association, which represents the grocery industry, said he wants to see the bag and recycling policies kept in place.
"We feel this isn't really an environmental issue,” Houghton said. “It's a sanitary issue. It's a health issue."
Houghton said store workers are concerned about transmission from the virus both from reusable bags and from handling returned bottles and cans.
"If you can mitigate or minimize the exposure for the grocery store workers and for the customers for anything that could possibly be contaminated and carry this pandemic further," Houghton said, "why not do it all?"
Initially, little was known about how the virus spreads. But scientists now say there’s little chance of contracting the virus from a reusable shopping bag.
"All the data we have so far suggest it's a very small risk,” said Andrew Lover, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at UMass Amherst. “Not necessarily zero, but very small."
The biggest issue, Lover said, would be if a customer coughed or sneezed on their hands, and then grabbed a bag and handed it to an employee.
The state Department of Public Health said in a statement that the policy that people can't use reusable bags has not been rescinded. Baker's office didn’t respond to a call asking if and when that might be changed.
A spokesperson for the state Department of Environmental Protection said they are working on finalizing a plan to resume enforcement of the regulations requiring bottle and can redemptions. The statement said the department plans to include guidelines for redemptions to protect the safety of retail employees and the public.
