Province delays plastic bag ban
Local governments lack authority to deal with issue
With Toronto this week becoming the first major city in Canada to ban plastic grocery bags, what’s stopping Vancouver, which likes to call itself the greenest city in the country?
Turns out it’s open to the idea, but any action is being stymied by the need to get authority from the provincial government.
And while B. C. Premier Christy Clark has until now shown little interest in giving municipalities such authority, she said Thursday she’s talking to them about the idea.
“I think we’re all really highly conscious of it as an issue,” said Clark, who noted she uses cloth bags herself.
“I think different communities will have different views about it, but I think Vancouverites ... it might be something that Vancouverites have a real appetite for.”
Vancouver Coun. Andrea Reimer, who takes the lead on the city’s green initiatives, welcomed the premier’s comments.
“We’re looking forward to talking to the [ province] because we really would ultimately like that power [ to ban plastic bags],” Reimer said Thursday.
“Personally, I would like to see a ban.”
Reimer cautioned, however, a ban would have to be phased in over time, perhaps in three, five or 10 years.
She also warned that a plastic bag ban is not a “magic wand” to clean up the environment, noting food scraps account for 40 per cent of Vancouver’s waste stream. Construction material is also a major landfill problem, she said, adding the city is tackling both issues.
Even though Vancouver has its own charter giving it more powers than other municipalities, which are governed by the province’s community charter, it does not have the legal authority to implement a ban of this type.
To allow Vancouver to implement a ban would require a change to the city’s charter and provincial laws, says the province.
Reimer said she was not embarrassed that Toronto had beaten Vancouver to the punch, noting it did so out of the blue and cautioning that Toronto may also not have the authority to pass the ban.
Reimer said she’d like to see other municipalities in the Lower Mainland join a ban on plastic bags.
The issue is on many municipalities’ radar: As far back as 2008, the Union of B. C. Municipalities passed a resolution calling for a ban on thin- film, plastic grocery bags.
In 2009, Richmond supported retailers taking responsibility for reducing the use of plastic bags.
In Surrey, Coun. Bruce Haynes said the issue will be examined at committee level, with recommendations possibly going to council.
However, he said he hadn’t heard a lot of appetite for a ban.
Rossland, in B. C.’ s southern interior, tried to bring in a ban in 2008 but was stymied by lack of authority to do so.
“Most people in Rossland are environmentally conscious.
In the first six months of the program, 90 per cent of our customers stopped using [ plastic bags]. MADELEINE LOWENBORGFRICK
IKEA
There may still be a small need for plastic bags but many here don’t use them,” said Rossland Mayor Greg Granstrom.
According to news reports, Tofino’s council brought in a voluntary ban in 2007.
Elsewhere in North America, Hawaii has a ban in place, as do major cities such as Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
San Francisco led the way in the U. S., with a ban five years ago covering supermarkets and pharmacies. Now the city has expanded the ban to all retail stores and restaurants.
Although there is no ban in Vancouver, various grocery stores have made efforts to discourage the use of plastic grocery bags. Real Canadian Superstore charges for the bags, while Whole Foods does not have them.
After picking up a few groceries at No Frills on Broadway on Thursday, Stephanie Janzen said her support of a plastic bag ban would depend on the alternatives.
Normally she uses cloth bags, but on Thursday she did not bring them, so instead was using a plastic bag.
If there was no alternative, that could be a problem, said Janzen.
Ikea has had tough but recyclable polypropylene bags since 2003, but was still going through 25 million single- use plastic bags a year until the furniture retailer started charging five cents for each one in 2007.
“In the first six months of the program, 90 per cent of our customers stopped using them,” said spokeswoman Madeleine Lowenborg- Frick. “It had a pretty significant impact.”
Ikea got rid of disposable bags altogether in 2009.
Opponents of plastic bags say a ban will reduce garbage in landfills and in oceans.
But retailers caution a ban on plastic bags could have unintended consequences, noting that paper bags have an environmental impact as well. “An outright ban might be a bit of overkill,” said Allen Langdon, vice- president of sustainability for the Retail Council of Canada.
Plastic bags are also often reused for garbage and pet waste, which means eliminating plastic retail bags will simply mean people will buy bags to replace them, said Langdon.
In British Columbia, he noted, retailers have banded together to reduce plastic bag use with education and incentives.
Since 2007, plastic bag use has decreased 34 per cent in B. C. to about 520 million a year.