GREENFIELD — The plastic bag ban may become law in Greenfield after all.
On Thursday morning, City Councilor Doug Mayo requested reconsideration of a proposed plastic bag ban that he helped defeat Wednesday night.
Mayo said he voted against the ordinance when he found himself confused by many amendments made by other councilors.
Because Mayo voted for the prevailing “no” side, he is allowed to call for a do-over. The full council will get to decide whether to reconsider the ban at its November meeting — and is likely to have the votes to reconsider and enact a ban because Mayo is switching sides.
The Wednesday vote was 6-5 against the ban.
“I am in favor of the plastic bag ban, and the amendments were tearing it apart, and I was also trying to gauge where my colleagues stood,” Mayo said. “At one point one of my colleagues said they felt like they couldn’t support their own ordinance and then switched their vote. Being that it was such a tight vote, this gives the council a chance to re-vote.”
Mayo added council President Karen Renaud could also send the ordinance back to committee for “minor tweaks” to gain additional votes.
The Wednesday vote in favor was Timothy Dolan, Sheila Gilmour, Otis Wheeler, Penny Ricketts and Ashli Stempel and the six opposed: Verne Sund, John Lobik, Allis Brickett, Daniel Leonovich, Isaac Mass and Mayo. Councilor Wanda Pyfrom was not present for the vote and Renaud, as president, often does not vote except to break a tie in the 13-member body.
Mayo’s new ‘yes’ vote would create a tie, and Renaud, who also favors the ban, would tip the scale.
Renaud said she thinks “the ordinance has a good chance of passing.”
“I support the plastic bag ban, it’s been a long time coming, and I think the ordinance strikes a nice balance,” Renaud said Thursday. “Eighteen months is enough time to comply.”
The 18 month start date for the ban was one amendment passed by the council Wednesday, which also discussed how much businesses could charge for paper bags that would be supplied to shoppers in lieu of plastic bags.
This is the second time in recent years that environmental advocates have pushed for such a ban.
The proposed ordinance would have banned retail locations from using disposable plastic bags where customers check out. They would be required to provide either recyclable paper bags, reusable bags or approved compostable plastic bags.
The proposal specifies that reusable bags must be designed to be reused at least 125 times.
Plastic bags used by laundries and dry-cleaners, newspaper bags or bags used to contain or wrap frozen food, meat or fish or bags used by pharmacies, for a customer purchasing medication, would not be affected.
In 2015, a citizen-written ordinance was proposed to ban plastic bags, plastic bottles and plastic foam containers in the city.
Members of the citizens’ group Greenfield Rights of Nature, an environmental advocacy group, pushed for the ordinance’s approval for months. A non-binding ballot question in November of 2015 revealed voters were not ready for plastic bags or bottles to be banned.
Single-use, plastic foam containers were banned by the City Council in 2016, but not plastic bags or single-use bottles.