Majority of residents in favour of reducing plastics

The majority of surveyed citizens in Regina say a partial or complete ban on single-use plastic is important to them.

In a survey issued by the city, 82 per cent of respondents said it was important to very important that single-use plastics be reduced. Of the survey’s 10,538 respondents, 2,970 said the reduction was important and 5,652 said it was very important.

A motion coming up at city council later this month, first introduced by Coun. Bob Hawkins in April, could set the stage for banning plastic bags and single-use plastics.

Even if that motion passes, Regina has a lot of work to do if the city wants to meet its targets of reducing waste at the landfill.

The initial proposed target of diverting 65 per cent of waste away from the landfill — a target set in 2011 — may have to be reassessed, according to the city.

At its Tuesday morning meeting, the five-person public works and infrastructure committee voted unanimously in favour of receiving and filing a report on the Waste Plan Regina 2019 report.

Hawkins said, according to the report, between 2015 and 2019 there has been virtually no difference in the rate of diversion.

Hawkins said after a decade of efforts to curb waste heading out to the dump, the city is still facing a 20-per-cent shortfall on meeting its reduction target. That includes an as-yet-introduced compost program aimed at reducing organic waste. The program, which was to begin in April with a pilot at 2,800 households, was delayed due to COVID-19.

Hawkins served notice last month on a motion to ban single use plastics, a motion which will be debated at the upcoming city council meeting on May 27.

Kim Onrait, executive director of citizen services, said a ban on single-use plastics would divert waste by one per cent or less. Still, that doesn’t mean it won’t help.

“When you compare us to the rest of Canada, we are behind,” said Onrait. “We have not seen a big change in the diversion rate.”

Hawkins mentioned that every 10 per cent of waste diverted from the landfill added an additional two to three years to landfill. So reducing single-use plastics may add three to four months onto the lifespan of the landfill. Onrait said the landfill currently has a projected life of 26 years.

The committee emphasized education to reduce waste, but Hawkins was skeptical of its efficacy.

“Education doesn’t seem to be moving us very far,” he said.

The focus of the organics program and much of the education is on household waste. But as it stands, 70 per cent of waste heading to the landfill comes from businesses and industry.