PLASTIC AIN’T FANTASTIC
Let’s clean up our mess
Earlier this week, after Britain’s Environment Minister Michael Gove hinted at a countrywide ban on plastic straws, the European Union went further, suggesting legislation banning single-use plastics is coming this summer.
In Malibu, Calif., city council banned restaurants and food vendors from using or selling plastic straws, stir sticks and utensils starting June 1 — the same day that all food vendors in Seattle must start using only compostable or reusable ones.
In 2008, Malibu was one of the first American cities to ban plastic shopping bags. Eight years later, California banned all single-use bags after a statewide referendum.
Even Fort McMurray, Alta. — proud centre of oilsands development — banned plastic bags way back in 2010.
So, when Coun. Lorrie Williams raised the prospect of New Westminster banning single-use plastic bags on Monday, it hardly seemed groundbreaking stuff.
“Bags seemed like an easy target,” she says with a laugh after being reminded that the City of Victoria is being sued for its bag-ban bylaw and her own colleagues supported it only so far as they agreed to refer it to city staff for a report. Staff have also been instructed to test the Metro Vancouver waters to see whether all 21 municipalities might be amenable to a ban.
Fortunately, Williams is an optimist, pointing out that smoking is an example of how social change can and does occur. Already, she says, “more and more people seem to be getting into the habit of carrying their own bags.”
She also figures that if a whole bunch of B.C. municipalities pass bylaws, it won’t be possible for the Canadian Plastics Industry Association to sue them all.
The association argues that the City of Victoria lacks the jurisdiction to prohibit businesses from providing plastic bags or forcing them to charge for paper or reusable bags.
The bylaw — as with the one Williams proposes, and others — does have exceptions for a whole variety of things, including bagging meat, fish, prescriptions, bulk items, frozen food, bakery goods and dry cleaning.
Vancouver, which has pretensions to being the world’s greenest city, has been talking about it. It has quantified the problem: Two million shopping bags a week go into the garbage. But what’s got more attention is the city’s estimate that every week 2.6 million, plastic-coated coffee cups are tossed. That’s 1,300 cups every five minutes.
At this point, Vancouver seems more focused on recycling than banning, which is the view of the plastics association as well. But we won’t know until later this year how Vancouver plans to meet its target of zero waste by 2040.
Why does any of this matter? Because the world is drowning in plastic.
If nothing changes, by 2030 there will be more plastic by weight in the oceans than there are fish. That’s not from some wild-eyed extremist group, it’s from a 2017 World Economic Forum report.
In Seattle, they figure that if all the straws used there in a single month were placed end to end, they would pave the way to Vancouver. Yes, straws. Those useless plastic bits ubiquitous in restaurants, even though most of us long ago outgrew sippy cups. And a lot of them make their way into the ocean because they slip through the wastewater treatment plant filters.
But besides all that, estimates of ocean plastics only account for the stuff that is visible. Researchers like Peter Ross of Ocean Wise Conservation Association have only recently begun studying microfibres and their effects on the oceans’ creatures, from the largest to the smallest.
Microfibres include everything from bits broken off fleece jackets in the laundry to plastic bags and other pieces decomposing in landfills, oceans and rivers.
Over a quarter of all plastic is used for packaging, according to the World Economic Forum report. Only 14 per cent of it is recycled, compared with 58 per cent of paper and 90 per cent of iron and steel.
Companies took note of the rising tide of concern. McDonald’s has promised all of its packaging will be from sustainable sources by 2025.
In January, Coca-Cola committed to collecting and recycling the equivalent of every bottle and can it sells by 2030. That’s in addition to its efforts to develop fully recyclable packaging that contains less plastic.
Williams sighs when I ask what is holding B.C. back. “I think we’ve been slow with everything to do with changing habits.”
It’s astounding, really, that given all the bold talk here about protecting the environment, our governments are lagging behind other cities, regions and even corporations.
Of course, maybe there aren’t enough of us demanding change and leading by example.
It’s not that hard to take reusable bags to the grocery store. Of course, it’s harder to insist that your favourite takeout place or food truck use recyclable containers and cutlery.
But here’s the easiest one: If we’re old enough to go to restaurants without our parents, order fancy coffees and even fancier cocktails, we need to insist that we can manage just fine without a straw.
In another column, I’ll take a look at the industry’s response to bag bans.