Great Barrington — As the town prepares to implement its decision to ban the sale of small single-use plastic water bottles — despite a last-minute attempt to thwart the initiative that had been adopted at the May Annual Town Meeting — some local businesses are embracing the embargo by installing water refill stations where customers can fill up their reusable water bottles.
We’re going to see if Berkshire Mountain Water would like to sponsor the water station, but if not we will use tap water.” Still, he added, it will take a while to recalibrate our reliance upon plastic service items.
So this ban on plastic water bottles is just a beginning.” Adam Sugarman, customer services manager at the Berkshire Co-op Market agrees that the ban is just a start.
Prior to the plastic bag ban adopted at the 2014 town meeting, the Berkshire Co-op was already charging 10 cents for individual paper bags and money was never the goal.
But it increased awareness a lot.” Raising awareness of the proliferation of plastic waste is what Matt Masiero, co-owner of Guido’s Fresh Marketplace, attempted to do at the August 6 special town meeting that had been scheduled to consider a repeal of the plastic water bottle ban.
“We had written a letter to the editor,” Masiero said, “and I was going to go up and read that letter at the special town meeting for that those who had not had the benefit of seeing it.” As it turned out, Masiero, a Richmond resident, did not have an opportunity to present his letter.
“Our goal is to eliminate as much plastic as we can,” Masiero continued.
We got rid of plastic bags, because we had an easy solution.
We have bigger problems we need to start dealing with and this is just a start.” When the ban goes into effect next year, Great Barrington will become the third community in the United States to prohibit the sale of small single-use plastic water bottles.
It’ll change your whole outlook.” He then pointed to a monitor at the entrance of Guido’s that has the documentary being screened repeatedly for customers.