At its March 20th meeting, the Needham Select Board discussed and then unanimously adopted its proposed policy requesting that stores over 3,500 square feet voluntarily discontinue the use of single-use plastic check-out bags on or before June 1st. While this falls short of the simple outright ban supported by Green Needham, and advocated by most of the residents who spoke out at the February 27th public meeting, it is still a significant step forward for our community.
As we previously reported, Roche Brothers and Sudbury Farms have already removed plastic check-out bags from their stores in Needham. Trader Joe’s already does not use plastic bags.
You can watch the board discussion and vote in this video from The Needham Channel available through the links on this page. The discussion begins at 85:00 minutes into the meeting and lasts for 16 minutes.
Please join us to build on our progress by thanking the merchants as they make this change and encouraging others to follow their lead.
Green Needham’s plastic bag ban team is also working to select and customize a high-quality reusable bag to support residents and all merchants in their efforts to move away from single-use bags. We will provide funding – and will seek contributions and additional support – to buy and distribute a substantial quantity of bags within the community.
We hope to do an initial distribution by partnering with merchants who told us during our research that they wanted to move away from single-use bags, and to expand from there. We also hope to reach out to the Community Council, Council on Aging and the Needham Housing Authority to make bags available to their clients.
If individuals or organizations would like to participate in this effort, please reach out to Rob Fernandez, Chair of our Plastic Bag Ban team, or Michael Greis, Chair of Green Needham.
