To the editor:

On April 19, I participated in the Bristol Town Cleanup. Bottles and cans carelessly tossed to the sides of the road transformed the landscape from the beautiful budding of springtime to a jungle of junk in a landfill.

Litter is both an eyesore and an environmental hazard. For the past two years, more than 20,000 pounds of trash (including a significant proportion of “drinking items”) has been collected during annual clean up days from Rhode Island’s shorelines alone. University of Rhode Island researchers detected 1,000 tons of microplastic in the sediment in Narragansett Bay as mentioned in a recent study.

When I moved to Rhode Island from Massachusetts eight years ago, I was surprised there was no bottle bill. Four of the six New England states have such bills, with only New Hampshire joining Rhode Island in not having adopted one. I never found returning cans and bottles to be a hardship. It just becomes a regular task during your trip to the grocery store.

As one of the bill’s sponsors, Mark McKenney said, “We can kick the can down the road — it can be our children’s problem, it could be our grandchildren’s problem. But we do have to ask what kind of state we are leaving for them.” We should be the caretakers of our precious lands now, before it’s too late.

The Trump administration is rolling back many environmental safeguards. Here in Rhode Island we have an opportunity to make a difference. I urge you to contact your state senators in support of S0996 and S0997 and your state representative in support of H6207 for a cleaner and healthier Bristol and Rhode Island.

Nancy Kellner
Bristol