Letter To Editor: Bag Ban Won’t Address Ocean Pollution
Mount Desert Islander cited CEI on plastic bag ban.
The Islander has been reporting on Southwest Harbor’s move to ban single-use plastic bags and polystyrene food containers. While this may be a ‘feel good’ move to reduce plastic waste in Acadia National Park, and along roadsides, I just read an article providing “Five Reasons Banning Plastics May Harm the Environment and Consumers” by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The article was published on the group’s website, cei.org, on July 13.
The reference in that work was the attempts to solve ocean pollution by such bans. But these moves actually divert attention away from real solutions to the ocean plastics problem.
Referring to ocean waste, CEI claims that about 52 percent of trash in the ocean is made up of fish nets, ropes and lines, something the area can identify with as it relates to killing whales, right? The rest of the trash ranges from large plastic crates and bottle caps to small fragments called microplastics.