Green Hudson August Newsletter

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Statewide Plastic Bag Ban Not Included in the Massachusetts
July Legislative Approvals Among Other Items

The Massachusetts Senate caused a great stir of excitement for the Climate Action community in June by passing a Plastic Bag Ban as part of their Plastic Reduction Act. MA would have become the 13th state in the U.S. to ban single-use plastic bags. Unfortunately, the MA House of Representatives did not include the Bag Ban in the bills that they brought forth in late July, despite the fact that over 165 towns in MA have banned

them. They also failed to include the expanded Bottle Bill in their votes which would have helped us to reduce plastic and glass waste significantly.

Last year, Green Hudson members asked the Hudson Board of Health to sponsor a Plastic Reduction bill similar to the ones passed in Sudbury, Lincoln, Acton,Maynard, and 65 other towns in MA. The Board told us that they would prefer to see action taken at the state level and asked us to wait until after this legislative session.

Since this is not the first year that the Legislature failed to pass plastic reduction legislation, the Green Hudson Plastic Reduction Committee believes that it is time to take matters into our own local hands. We will gather signatures over the next few weeks to present to the Select Board for a comprehensive Plastic Reduction bylaw to be voted on during the Special Town Meeting in November.

Specifically, the bylaw would ban restaurants from giving out Styrofoam take-out containers or cups, or black plastic containers. It would also ban them from giving out plastic utensils including spill sticks, and plastic straws. Retail food stores would also be banned from using Styrofoam or black plastic when packing grocery and meat items in the store. Affordable alternatives do exist. So far, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Washington, D.C. have banned polystyrene containers from restaurants. Connecticut and Rhode Island have banned plastic straws as well.

Will you please sign our petition to allow this by law to appear on the November Town Meeting warrant? Get in touch with Elisa Pearmain before August 29th if you would like to sign. We will also need more volunteers to help get out the vote and to educate people in our community.

Contact Elisa Pearmain Plastic Reduction Committee Chair – [email protected]

(781) 640-9499.

Saturday 8/10/24, Green Hudson will be lending a recycling hand

The Hudson Rotary Club reached out to Green Hudson to see
if we would set up recycling stations for their annual Brew Fest as we have done at past HudsonFests. The Brew Fest is scheduled for Saturday, August 10th from 2:00–6:00 p.m. We have printed new signs with simpler sorting instructions, and we are again coordinating our effort with Black Earth Compost.

We still need volunteers for the 3:30–5:00 and 5:00–closing shifts. Volunteers will get free admission to the Brewfest tasting with more than 45 vendors and $15 of coupons to use at any of the six food trucks. If you or someone you know can help during either of those shifts, please respond to [email protected].

The White House Has a Plan to Slash Plastic Use in the U.S.

Calling plastic pollution one of the world’s most pressing environmental problems, the Biden administration on July 19th said that the federal government, the biggest buyer of consumer goods in the world, would phase out purchases of single-use plastics. The plan is to phase out purchases of single-use plastics for food, events and packaging by 2027. By 2035, it will banish single-use plastics from all government operations.

The administration also said it planned to create tougher regulations on plastic manufacturing, which releases planet-warming greenhouse gases and other dangerous pollutants.

The efforts, which the White House called the first comprehensive strategy to tackle plastic use nationwide, aim to reduce demand for disposable plastic items while also helping to create a market for substitutes that are reusable, compostable or more easily recyclable.

Green Energy Innovation: Fusion Technology

Electrification is a key strategy to decarbonize energy generation and consumption. The challenge is not only to transition to green energy consumption but also to replace current fossil fuel electricity generation with green energy generation AND also to dramatically increase green energy generation. There are a
lot of very interesting and promising areas of

innovation addressing these challenges. One

Photo courtesy of MIT.

such area is fusion technology. As discussed below, fusion generates electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. This is the same process that powers the sun. Fusion energy promises to provide a near-limitless source of green power while leaving no radioactive waste, unlike nuclear fission used in nuclear power plants today.

Fusion is a green process. Nuclear fission on the other hand, which is used by the Seabrook Nuclear plant that provides most of the electricity to Hudson, is a clean process (no carbon dioxide produced) but the process is not green. It leaves toxic nuclear radioactive waste. This waste is dangerous and remains radioactive for 30–50 years or longer. The nuclear industry still has no solution to the "nuclear waste problem." For more information, click here.

Fusion power generates electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. In order for the atoms to fuse together on Earth, the temperature has to reach ten times the heat of the Sun (~100 million degrees Celsius). A fusion reactor is used to accomplish this. The fuel is contained in a confined environment, where it is exposed to high temperatures and pressure over a long confinement time. This creates plasma in which fusion can occur.

Fusion is a promising area of research and as of 2022 an experiment was run to produce more energy than what was used/consumed in running the experiment. This feat has been repeated several times since. The challenge is to scale production to generate more power and to sustain generation over a longer period of time. The U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said: “We now have the confidence that it’s not only possible, but probable, that fusion energy can be a reality”.

Recently the Congressional Fusion Energy Caucus Co-Chairs Lori Trahan (D-MA), Don Beyer (D-VA), Jay Obernolte (R-CA), and Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN) celebrated the signing of their Fusion Energy Act that lays the groundwork to accelerate the research, development, and implementation of commercial fusion energy.

Several companies have formed aiming to commercialize fusion. Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) in Devens is one such company.

This is all very encouraging. However, much work is still left to be done. Fusion power plants are not expected to be available for another 20+ years but clearly it is a matter of when, not if. This is groundbreaking work for the next generation.

Other Sources

BBC Story: Nuclear fusion: new record brings dream of clean energy closer

CNN Story: Scientists successfully replicate historic nuclear fusion breakthrough three times

This article was authored by Per Gyllstrom, a Green Hudson member.

Committee Reports

For the summer months, our committees are on standby. Should anything of importance arise, Green Hudson will send out email alerts. Green Hudson meetings and committees will resume on September 22nd.

Climate and Energy Committee

Contact Brian White at [email protected]

Outreach and Education Committee

Contact Jeanette Millard at [email protected]

Plastics Reduction Committee

Contact Elisa Pearmain at [email protected]

Legislative Update

The 2023/2024 legislative session ended early Thursday morning, and the legislature failed to produce a climate bill. This is very disappointing. Although the Senate and the House both passed omnibus energy packages in the last few weeks, conference committee negotiations broke down with members unable to come to an agreement.

Thank you so much to any Green Hudson members who have called their senators, their representatives and the governor, sometimes multiple times. We hear that our calls, emails and texts made a difference and our legislators tried to come to an agreement.

We know that impacts from climate change continue to grow and present more extreme weather patterns that cause intense heat, flooding, fires and insect-borne illness. These impacts are worse in environmental justice communities, exacerbating existing racial and economic inequalities.

We hope that with the urging of Governor Healey, the legislators will convene a formal session in September to pass an Economic Development bill that didn’t get passed in the just-ended session. Climate activists hope that at least the siting and permitting part of the bill could be attached to the Economic Development bill.

Composters:
Time to Think about an Alternative to Plastic Produce Stickers

Produce stickers are a most frustrating contaminant. They do not break down in the compost pile and due to their small size are not filtered out in most commercial screening processes. Produce stickers could become the next "plastic straw" as we move toward the elimination of single use plastics. Alternative solutions to plastic PLU stickers exist, such as laser printing SKU codes on produce or using certified-compostable stickers.

France has banned non-compostable stickers on native grown produce and Del Monte France has made the switch with their crops grown in France. New Zealand began banning non-compostable labels on July 1st for native grown produce. Imported fruit labels will need to be compostable some time in 2025. And, here in the U.S., Washington state is investigating a ban on non-compostable labels. You can read about one of the manufacturers of compostable labels here.

Rather than send the stickers removed from
produce to landfills, some people create artwork.

Recycling Is Broken. Should I Even Bother?

Every little bit helps. But doing it wrong can actually make matters worse. It’s no wonder a lot of the New York Times' readers have asked whether individual efforts make any difference at all. To answer that question, it helps to understand how the system works and how people use it. Read the article here.

The Assabet River flows through the town of Hudson providing a powerful reminder of why we want to protect the beauty the earth provides. Scientists are alarmed as we witness climate change happening. We need to do more to put a stop to the threat.

Join Green Hudson now to learn more.

You are invited

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