I am writing about an issue that I can no longer stay silent about: plastic nip bottles. I walk my dogs all over this Island every week and am appalled and ashamed by the amount of plastic nip bottles that are strewn along the sides of our roads in five towns. I applaud the conservation commission and others responsible for instituting the ban on single use plastic bags in four of our five Island towns, but I really would like to see a discussion regarding this twofold problem. Twofold in that you have people drinking while driving and then polluting by tossing these plastic nip bottles out the window of their vehicles. If you walk at all on this Island, you simply cannot be immune to seeing them. Why are plastic nip bottles so popular? I believe it is because of their size, price and convenience. They can be well hidden in the palm of the user’s hand and then quickly tossed out the window before being discovered. I have had this conversation with many friends and they have all told me — stay away from this issue, don’t be the front man for this cause as there is a powerful lobby against you. I’ve also been told that this is a state issue rather than a local one. But I believe that something needs to be done here on the Island. I am not fooling myself into thinking that we could have these plastic nip bottles banned outright, as I think for the present, it would be unrealistic to assume that we could accomplish that, but we could start by adding a five-cent deposit as a helpful starting point.

I have spoken to our newly-elected state representative Dylan Fernandes, who understands this issue and agrees that something needs to be done. I love this Island but it offends my senses to see this much disrespect shown toward the Island by those tossing them along our roads. I hope this letter will open up a discussion on this issue.

Paul Doherty
Vineyard Haven