Annapolis Valley Register

‘This is in our control’

Provincial inaction leaves it up to municipali­ties to ban the bag

- BY BRENDAN AHERN SALTWIRE NETWORK PICTOU, N.S. - . With files from Valley Journal Advertiser and Kings County News

Consensus on a complex issue can be hard to reach.

But without action from the provincial government, consensus among Nova Scotia’s largest municipali­ties is what’s needed if there is going to be a large-scale ban on single-use plastics by the end of 2019.

“We’re always going to the province asking for more powers,” said Halifax Regional Municipali­ty councillor, and president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipali­ties, Waye Mason during a brief presentati­on to the Halifax Environmen­t and Sustainabi­lity Standing Committee last month.

“By working together, we can implement a province-wide ban, or a nearly province-wide ban without waiting for the minister of environmen­t and the legislatio­n to take action,” he said. “This is in our control.”

At that meeting the committee approved a strategy that would effectivel­y ban single-use plastics like plastic-wraps, bread bags and shopping bags, from HRM by the end of 2019. In lieu of a provincial­ly regulated ban, HRM would collaborat­e with the other nine large municipali­ties to draft bylaws aiming at eliminatin­g single-use plastic bags as soon as possible, but no later than December 2019.

“We met, and all the mayors agreed that they will ban plastic bags this year,” said Mason of the federation’s annual general meeting which took place in November. The dates the ban are subject to change, but Mason said a suggested date which came out of the November meeting was for a soft-launch on July 1, with a hard ban on Oct. 1.

“At the November AGM we agreed to support this and we’re awaiting informatio­n from HRM,” said New Glasgow Mayor Nancy Dicks. “They have staff that are working on the details and they’ve taken the lead.”

“All levels of government have been dragging their feet,” said Wolfville Mayor Jeff Cantwell. Cantwell is also a board member on the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipali­ties. He said while he’s glad the ban is moving forward, he wishes it was province-led and had happened much sooner.

Jenny Postema, municipal clerk with the County of Kings, said their council passed a motion in March 2018 to “support a province-wide ban on single-use plastics, provided the initiative is undertaken by the province of Nova Scotia and involves a promotiona­l campaign.”

But the province has said it will not pursue a regulated ban, and so the County of Kings is at a standstill on the issue.

How much plastic?

Out of the province’s 50 municipali­ties, 41 made similar motions of support for a province-wide approach on a distributi­on ban of single-use plastics, or polyethyle­ne film plastics, which have been banned from Nova Scotia’s landfills since 1994.

Nova Scotia used to ship this recyclable material to China. But since the end of 2017, when China announced it would no longer be accepting Canada’s film plastics, the plastics have been piling up and municipali­ties are having trouble finding markets to ship it.

According to the latest data from Statistics Canada, Nova Scotia diverted 293,178 tonnes of residentia­l and non-residentia­l material from municipal landfills. Nova Scotians also use between 300 and 500 million plastic grocery bags each year, with only three per cent of that figure finding its way into the streets, trees and waterways as observable garbage.

Province passes “Single-use plastic is all they’re talking about in Halifax right now. It’s a small portion of this film plastic, but it’s a start,” said Jim Ryan, mayor of the Town of Pictou and chairman of the Shared Services Authority which oversees waste management in the county.

As chairman of the SSA, Ryan also represents the region on the Nova Scotia Solid Waste Management Regional Chairs Committee. On Jan. 11, 2018 this committee met with the former environmen­t minister Iain Rankin to address the plastic problem and develop a province-wide reduction strategy. Rankin tasked the committee with returning to their own municipali­ties and bring forward a consensus on a province-wide ban.

Five months later, they reached one.

“We came back and said, ‘We have a consensus, we would like a provincial ban.’” The committee informed Rankin in a letter sent on May 28 from the committee chairman Leland Anthony.

In response, the minister thanked the committee for their progress, adding, “Nova Scotia Environmen­t is investigat­ing options to reduce the amount of polyethyle­ne film landfilled in Nova Scotia.”

Soon after, the provincial cabinet was reshuffled and Hants East MLA Margaret Miller took over as Environmen­t minister. In October, Miller told reporters the province would not be pursuing a province-wide ban.

The committee sent a letter to the new minister for an explanatio­n.

“Municipali­ties have worked really hard to obtain consensus, not easily achieved on most subjects, to support the province,” the letter reads. “We were so disappoint­ed to recently hear the interview on CBC that your department is not in support of a bag ban.”

In response, the minister thanked the committee for expressing support for a province-wide ban, adding, “new innovative uses new markets for these materials” would help the province divert the plastics out of Nova Scotia’s landfills.

The responsibi­lity for finding those markets ultimately lies with the municipali­ties.

“The province should be stepping up here,” said Ryan. “Especially after we were asked to do this as municipali­ties.”

The first of what could be 10 motions brought forward to municipal councils across the province will be debated at Halifax regional council in January.

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