To the editor:

I am writing to encourage East Bay readers to contact their representatives to voice support for House bill H 6207 pending in the Rhode Island legislature that would create a bottle bill for RI and require extended producer responsibility for packaging. This bill would reduce litter and keep plastics and other waste from contaminating our environment. Instead of leaving Rhode Islanders with packaging trash every time we go to the store that we pay to dispose of through our cities and towns, the bill would create a system to redeem bottles for cash and give product distributors incentives to reduce packaging, develop new, better packaging or go back to tried and tested reusable containers.

H 6207 is the result of careful research conducted by the Special Joint Legislative Commission to Study and Provide Recommendations to Protect our Environment and Natural Resources from Plastic Bottle Waste which examined the problems of bottle litter, waste and recycling in Rhode Island and published its findings this spring.
Rhode Island’s economy relies heavily on tourism and a healthy bay to support our fisheries, shellfish industry, and recreation. None of us like to see trash on the street, the bike path, at the beach, or in the bay, and we certainly don’t want the bay and the animals that live in it to be contaminated by invisible microplastics. This is not a theoretical problem. In 2023, URI researchers published a study in the journal Scientific Reports that found that the top 2 inches of the floor of Narragansett Bay now contain more than 1,000 tons of microplastics based on samples from the bay sediment. Recent scientific studies in the New England Journal of Medicine have shown that plastic is accumulating in human bodies as well.

Supporting H 6207 is a tangible step that Rhode Islanders can take to reduce litter in the Ocean State, protect Narragansett Bay, its watershed and the health of our communities.

Abigail Demopulos
Bristol