Connecticut Green Living

A strange phenomenon has crept into our daily lives here in Connecticut - the resurgence of the plastic bag. I understand that we are in a health crisis. I understand that there is concern about cashiers touching reusable bags. But why the rush to revert to plastic bags? What happened to paper? Another scourge: the plastic glove. I went to People's bank here in Branford and tucked into the envelope cubby were two gloves - one blue, one yellow, wadded like chewing gum. Guess what: someone has to remove those. And then these plastic gloves end up in the same waterways as our plastic bags. Remember the campaign against plastic? Remember climate change? Let me connect the dots. Climate change was already threatening our lives when Covid-19 hit. However, because it's a slower killer there was no 'shelter-in-place' command for climate change . If we had a president who believed in science, perhaps there would have been. Now climate change is rearing its pissed off head in...

I have been saying for years that our state claims to be green and blue yet its not so secret dirty habit is plastic bags. Plastic bags strewn all over the trees outside Stop 'n Shop. Plastic bags spilling out into the waterways. Plastic bags inevitably choking the life out of fish. It is with great relief to note that our ban goes into effect this Thursday. Here's what you need to know: For the period starting August 1, 2019, and ending June 30, 2021, each store including supermarkets and drug stores will charge a fee of ten cents for each single-use checkout bag provided to customers at the point of sale. But, the exciting part is that on and after July 1, 2021, no owner or operator of a store will be allowed to provide or sell a single-use checkout bag to a customer. A "single-use checkout bag" means a plastic bag with a thickness of less than four mils (one-thousandth of an inch, or 0.001 inch) that is provided by a store to a customer at the point of sale. It...