Oak Bluffs health officials say they won’t enforce their town’s plastic bottle ban as is, raising concerns for a policy approved in all Island towns.
At a Tuesday meeting, the health board cited a lack of staff to patrol local establishments. Instead, members suggested that towns collaborate on an enforcement plan, and that Oak Bluffs install more public water refill stations to cut down on the need for plastic bottles.
The issue came to a head In October when the town select board asked the health board to consider enforcing the ban on plastic water and soda bottles of 34 ounces and under, a bylaw voters approved in all Vineyard towns between 2019 and 2023. Select board members raised the issue of enforcement after fielding public complaints that local businesses were selling prohibited bottles regardless of the town meeting vote.
But at a health board meeting on Tuesday, Oak Bluffs health agent Alexa Arieta said only two town employees are available to enforce the ban in her town, a relatively complex process. “Everbody says, ‘It’s part of inspection, it’s no extra work for you.’ It’s not quite that simple,” she said.
The ban calls for fines for repeat violations, and the process of writing a ticket to offenders can take time. “That [ticket] goes to the owner, the town clerk, and the courthouse. Then you must follow up if the ticket isn’t paid,” Arieta said.
The health agent also said that passing a bylaw at town meeting wasn’t enough. A health board must adopt the ban as a regulation in order to enforce it. No local health board has done this on the Island, she said.
While the Oak Bluffs health board members supported the policy’s intent to reduce single-use plastics, they said they did not want to become the ban’s lone enforcers on-Island. Health board members suggested instead a collaboration on an Island-wide enforcement plan. Potential partners could be the select board, all Vineyard health boards, the Inter-Island Public Health Collaborative that works on the Vineyard and Nantucket, and the Vineyard Conservation Society, which has installed refill stations Island-wide.
“We as a board should be willing to work with the [select board] with structuring something that comes out the other end as a regulation, but also is comprehensive,” health board member Tom Zinno said. “It has regulations; there is money that’s going to be put aside for that. Maybe somebody else needs to enforce it, or come up with the exact language for it to work in the plan.”
He also suggested that an Island-wide inspector could better enforce the ban.
Arieta also recommended that the town install more bottle-filling stations to encourage people to use fewer disposable bottles.
“We must push forward with offering alternatives to people. How do you take something away and not provide clear alternatives to people?” she asked.
Please stop banning everything- we HAVE new water fill stations in OB ( note: they are NOT filtered) education helps a lot but we need to take responsibility for ourselves, kids learn from example, teach them. Just do the right thing – recycle, reuse, don’t litter, and be kind. But if I need a bottle of water I should be able to buy one.
Allowing single-serve unhealthy drinks ( high sugar, caffeine energy drinks, etc) while banning water in a bottle.
Make that idea make sense, please
Hey. You could spend a lots of time and energy researching and banning a plastic field but when you actually have to “do” something you run for cover. It’s easy to sit in chairs and pontificate.
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