As more than three dozen supporters of a municipal plastic bag ban flooded into a Legislative Council Ordinance Committee meeting, scheduled in one of the small conference rooms at the Municipal Center, October 18, Chairman Ryan Knapp opted to simply move the meeting out into the adjacent hallway.

The ordinance official said by the time his 7 pm meeting convened that evening, a group numbering around 40, including a handful of Newtown High School advocates and former First Selectman Pat Llodra, were already spilling out of the cramped meeting space. But once he and his committee members relocated, it was clear that virtually everyone present was in support of Newtown doing something to curtail the use of throwaway plastic grocery-type bags sooner than later.

According to Mrs Llodra, the issue has been on the town’s radar screen for a number of years. She told The Newtown Bee that during the last three years of her administration, she tasked three separate college interns to research and compile information as similar initiatives were codified in other towns across Connecticut.

Bringing copies of that data and documentation was one of the reasons Mrs Llodra said she wanted to come out to the ordinance meeting.

“I think the idea has a lot of merit,” the former town leader said. “It’s certainly consistent with our values here in Newtown.”

The initiative has long since had resident support behind it, led by Lynn Hungaski, along with Alex and Vanessa Villamil. Mrs Llodra said what started as a grassroots initiative called Newtown Forward has morphed into the Newtown Environmental Action Team (NEAT).

One of NEAT’s focus areas is to provide local education and promote environmentally sound initiatives both within town and across the state. One such initiative is to pass a ban on single-use plastic bags, which are reportedly contributing to the eight million tons of plastic that end up in the oceans annually, causing the deaths of countless forms of vital sea life.

That group recently worked with the with Newtown Cultural Arts Commission to host an event and exhibit called “In The Bag” at the Municipal Center.

The exhibition traced the beginnings of the Reusable Bag Movement and presented the growth of creative alternatives to plastic. The event culminated in recognizing Newtown students in grades 1-12 who created Newtown-specific designs to be printed on reusable shopping bags as part of a Parks & Rec-sponsored contest.

Mrs Llodra said a key aspect of that research was to determine if such a bag ban would have a negative impact on local businesses that would be involved.

“And what we learned through the research is that it would bring no harm,” she said. “In fact, we learned that in most of the communities, businesses rallied around the effort.”

Mr Knapp said that one local business owner who spoke at the ordinance meeting agreed, saying the conversion “would be easy.” Mr Knapp also pointed to the urgency that was evident among supporters, some who referenced a recent global report that indicated micro plastic particles from disposed plastic bags were starting to end up in food being consumed.

The ordinance chair said he was careful to lay out the pros as well as the challenges some businesses might face if they have a Newtown location that is affected by a bag ban and other locations that are not subject to one.

“I also warned them about the lengthy process of drafting and passing an ordinance like this,” he said. “I was hoping people didn’t come out expecting us to ratify a ban that night, but if they did, I tried to temper those expectations.”

Committee members Judit DeStefano and Jordana Bloom were responsible for compiling community expectations if such a ban was to be implemented. Mr Knapp also subsequently learned that the Newtown Health District — which was initially suggested as the monitoring and enforcement agency to oversee the ban — lacked the staff and resources to do that.

“We also originally determined it would affect businesses that were 1,500 square feet in size,” he said, “but that measurement would be hard to determine.”

He said the Town of Greenwich put its Conservation Commission in charge of enforcement, but added that Newtown’s commission is not empowered with the same authority.

Mr Knapp said his committee’s research pointed to enforcing such a ban with every business that uses them, including restaurants who put leftovers into bags for patrons to carry out or take home.

“There is a lot of sentiment that Newtown could be a leader by implementing a bag ban, but with 169 different municipalities, it might make more sense to wait and see if the state takes it up in the next session,” he said.

Mr Knapp said going forward, he would also like to see more potentially affected businesses at the table in the discussion phase.

“I say if we’re going to do this, let’s develop an ordinance that will work,” he added. “I can say for certain that it would have an impact on the local environment.”

He went on to explain that during participation in annual Pootatuck River cleanup projects, Mr Knapp often found himself dealing with many discarded plastic bags.

“I can’t tell you how many Subway bags I pulled out of the river around Sandy Hook center,” he said.

The committee also accepted a petition circulated among local high school students that contained almost 500 signatures of support.

Mrs Llodra said such a ban would be right in line with “Newtown’s legacy of environmental stewardship.”

“I’d be concerned that a statewide ban could become so watered down and compromised by political agendas that it would turn into something that was different that its original intent,” she said. “On the other hand, if Newtown was to enact such a ban with thoughtful research and public input, we could play a role in informing a statewide process.”

The former official said initiating a bag ban would “brand our community and would be another environmentally friendly practice we could add to our recycling programs, trails, parks, composting, and our Class A trout stream.”

“The more we add real policy to those exiting community practices and features, the more it solidifies our collective energy to make a difference here and across Connecticut,” Mrs Llodra added. “Newtown should lead Hartford on this.”