As many know, Governor Sununu banned the use of reusable bags at grocery stores at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. He believed these bags would increase virus spread and therefore felt disposable plastic bags would be safer. However now that we’re “opening back-up,” this rule has been left behind. So what can we do?
This morning I awoke to an email from our friends at Bona Fide. They are partnering with the Surfside Foundation to remove this ban. Here’s an excerpt from their message and how you can help:
1. If you haven’t yet, please participate in our action alert: go.surfrider.org/MyNHMyBag. We need to escalate our call for action here.
2. Please also share the alert with your NH friends and encourage them to participate and share. We need our voice to be louder calling for an end to the reusable bag ban!
3. Plan to call-in to the next Task Force public comment session, on Thursday, July 23, from 11am – 12pm, to again call for termination of Emergency Order #10 banning reusable bags, and again calling upon the Task Force to recommend this action to the Governor based on the best available science. Call-in: 1-800-356-8278 Pin: 194499 Press 5* to speak
Or email nhreopen@nheconomy.com and governorsununu@nh.gov; address your written comments to the Governor and ask that your email be sent to the public health committee.
4. On July 22, there is a national call-in event planned through our global Break Free From Plastic movement, to promote more Congressional sponsors to sign on to the federal Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act.
In the meantime, you can circumvent the need for plastic by bringing items to your car and packing there. We can do this! – Rachel