I find it incredibly ironic that just after the city stops residents from being able to recycle glass in our blue bags that they now proposed to start banning single-use bags.
Thank goodness the single-use plastic bag ban as proposed by Coun. Natalie Joly is not going ahead.
The term “single-use” plastic bag is very misleading – they really should be called multi-use bags, as a study by the Ontario Ministry of Environment showed on average 60 per cent of single-use bags are repurposed and used for other things like pet waste, household waste bags (kitchen or bathroom waste) or for tote bags for sports or gym equipment or pool towels, etc.
The same study showed that pet owners (versus the overall average) actually reuse 85 per cent of their bags for pet waste. If these plastic bags were banned, I would have to go out and buy other plastic bags just for these uses, buying bags for something that I already get and can reuse makes absolutely no sense.
It was also great that the other motion by Councillor Joly was defeated – it was to include other things like single-use coffee cups, plastic lids for coffee cups, plastic utensils, etc., in the ban. I can just imagine not being able to get a cup of coffee at the drive-thru because the coffee cups are lined with plastic (would everybody have to bring their own cup from home? Not very sanitary or health-safe), or a Booster Juice to go, or a Slurpee cup to go, or no fork to eat my take-out Chinese food.
What would be included next in the et cetera categories of banning single-use plastic – banning the plastic bag around the two loaves of bread (the single loaves already have a bag on them)? No more plastic wrap around the big bulk rolls of toilet paper because the rolls already have wrap around them? No more plastic wrapper around bulk plastic water bottles? No more diapers because they have plastic polymer in them as the absorbent pad?
Coun. Joly cited cities like Vancouver and Victoria and Montreal as leading the way in protecting the environment by banning plastic bags. That sounds great, but remember: greater Victoria still pumps roughly 130 million litres per day of sewage water directly into the ocean; Vancouver sewer pipes regularly overflow during high rainfall, dumping sewage into False Creek; and as reported in the national media, Montreal has dumped billions of litres of sewage into the St. Lawrence River in the past few years.
We need our council to focus on the big important priorities about running our city, like transportation, safety, infrastructure, budget, taxes and business development, etc., not spending their time or administration’s time on trivial things like banning plastic bags that account for less than one per cent of our landfill.
What’s next, banning the use of single-use plastic bags for our blue bag recycling?
Mike Killick, St. Albert
