Eliminating or drastically reducing the use of plastic shopping bags won鈥檛 solve all the world鈥檚 pollution problems, but it鈥檚 a practical step that can make a difference.
Victoria city councillors have asked staff to develop a bylaw that would ban retailers from providing single-use plastic bags.
Coun. Ben Isitt and Coun. Jeremy Loveday proposed drafting the bylaw and having Mayor Lisa Helps write to municipalities and electoral areas in the Capital Regional District urging them to follow suit.
The initiative is being promoted by the 91原创 Island chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, an environmental advocacy group. Surfrider says on a single Coastal Cleanup Day in 2012, more than one million plastic bags were picked up around the world, and the bags consistently make the top-10 list of items collected during beach cleanups.
The bags are found not only on beaches. They are ubiquitous. Light and easily blown about by the wind, they become snagged on trees and shrubs, even in remote places. They drift into waterways, where they can clog streams and sicken wildlife. Carried out to sea, bags and other plastic items eventually disintegrate into smaller particles that are harmful to marine organisms along the whole food chain.
According to the European Commission, the stomachs of 94 per cent of all birds in the North Sea area contain plastic.
If Victoria implements a ban on single-use plastic bags, it will become the first 91原创 capital city to do so, but it鈥檚 not a new concept. Toronto, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle have had such a ban in place for several years. Italy banned the bags in 2011.
In April, the European Parliament passed a law requiring member countries to drastically limit the use of plastic bags, with an initial threshold of 90 bags per person per year by 2019, reducing that use to 40 bags per person in 2025.
Canada uses nearly three billion plastic shopping bags each year, about 83 per person.
Outright bans aren鈥檛 the only solution. Denmark brought in a tax on plastic bags in 1993, resulting in a 60 per cent reduction in use. After imposing a levy on plastic bags in 2002, Ireland saw a 90 per cent decrease in the use of the bags within five months.
91原创 sought to ban single-use bags in 2012, but was stymied by the need to get authority to do so from the provincial government, which has no intention of imposing a ban.
But legal advice obtained by the Surfrider Foundation says that under provincial legislation, municipalities may impose requirements in relation to polluting or obstructing waterways.
鈥淧ursuant to this power 鈥� a bylaw banning plastic bags is within the jurisdiction of the City of Victoria to enact to prevent single-use plastic bags from polluting and obstructing local waterways,鈥� says the legal opinion.
Isitt says many retailers support the move. Some have already discontinued the use of the bags and see the bylaw as levelling the playing field.
Plastic has been a boon to the food industry, resulting in safer products, so we should not be hasty in getting rid of all plastic. But packaging small items in large blister packs is a huge waste, creating pollution and adding to the burden of landfills. Single-use plastic water bottles are another waste. We don鈥檛 need them, and too few are recycled.
The problem of pollution is huge, and single-use plastic bags are just part of that problem. But it鈥檚 one aspect we can easily tackle and see tangible results.
It鈥檚 a positive step within everyone鈥檚 reach, but it shouldn鈥檛 be the only step.
