Falmouth has an opportunity this fall to send a signal across the Cape that convenience and profit are not sufficient reasons for maintaining a product whose use is harmful to the environment and human health. I urge Town Meeting members to please vote "no" on Articles 11 and 12 at this upcoming Town Meeting to keep the commercial single-use plastic water bottle ban in place.

Single-use plastic water bottles are made from nonrenewable fuels, leach chemicals into consumables and never biodegrade. They impact our personal health, the health of the environment, and the health and longevity of other species who may ingest plastic as food. They contribute to the virtually inescapable presence of plastic in the environment, becoming a part of the microplastics that pollute the human food chain. Additionally, in humans, chemicals leached from plastic containers have been linked to ADHD, obesity, endocrine disruption, autoimmune disease, cardiovascular disease and even cancer.

Although it helps, recycling is not a solution. Like plastic production, recycling single-use plastic affects environmental and human health through emissions. Additionally, products made of recycled single-use plastic are not of the same quality as the original product they come from. To continue making that original product, new plastic needs to be introduced into the pipeline. Inevitably, after rounds of recycling, the quality of a plastic deteriorates beyond reuse, and the products made of it are deemed nonrecyclable. These are guaranteed to either be incinerated or sent to a landfill, creating toxic emissions or finding themselves in the surrounding ecosystems. Recycling is a Band-aid, but the rates at which we are producing plastic require a solution.

To offer some statistics, plastic takes over 400 years to degrade. Since the 1950s we've produced an estimated 8.3 billion metric tons of it, 12 percent of which has been incinerated. Nine percent is in a stage of recycling, while 79 percent has been placed into landfills or littered in the natural environment. And now we're producing plastic at rates faster than ever.

Today, over 1,500 single-use plastic water bottles are used and discarded in the United States per second. Stopping the use of this one product would have a significant impact on future plastic pollution and the national greenhouse gas footprint that is strongly related.

The commercial single-use plastic water bottle ban is a citizens action effort to reduce plastic consumption. The ban will eliminate the commercial sale of noncarbonated, unflavored water in single-use plastic water bottles. As of July 2022, the ban is in effect in eight [Cape Cod] towns: Brewster, Chatham, Eastham, Falmouth, Harwich, Orleans, Provincetown and Wellfleet.

And so, next Monday, Falmouth has a decision to make. We can take on the role of the environmental leader that we have been in the past, and pave the way toward a more sustainable future. Or we can repeal the commercial single-use plastic water bottle ban and signal to the world that even in a coastal town, where we are in touch with our natural environment, plastic is not a big enough issue to sacrifice some profit and a simple convenience for.

I urge the town to vote against repealing the citizens action.

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