Plastic bag ban fight rages on

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Living Greener
Written by WorkCabin.ca Staff
Sunday, 11 January 2009
Here's a safe prediction for 2009: The debate about whether to ban plastic bags or not in Canada will be stuffed with bitter fighting between pro-ban and anti-ban factions. Don't expect a speedy decision either way. If anything, Canadians can look forward to a patchwork of municipal decisions and corporate mandates, rather than an outright national ban leading the agenda. In other words, don't expect Canada to follow China's lead to ban the bags nationally. The debate over plastic bags boils down to a fight between pro-ban groups who say polyethylene bags are a non-renewable resource that litters the environment and harms wildlife. The anti-ban side the argument touts plastic bags as poster products for recycling and ideal for product health safety. This June, Toronto will become Canada's first major city to force consumers to pay a fee of at least five cents per plastic bag at store checkouts. Of course, consumers can avoid the fee altogether by using a reusable shopping bag -- that's exactly the point behind helping to divert waste from landfills. Starting this week in Toronto, Loblaws is acting ahead of the city-wide ban taking effect June 1. The company has now started to charge consumers the five cent per bag fee, and will donate the proceeds to the World Wildlife Fund. Other major grocery chains such as No Frills and Food Basics have been charging the fee for years. Municipal plastic bag bans already exist in smaller communities, such as Leaf Rapids, Manitoba. and Rossland, British Columbia. In Calgary last week, council debated having a plastic-bag-free city. But the city's major daily newspaper, the Calgary Herald, has already taken the position that such an idea should be trashed. "The marketplace is already moving away from plastic bags in response to consumers' demands. It doesn't need to be forced to go there by a meddling city council," the paper said in an editorial Friday. "If the city is so concerned about the environment, it should start by cleaning up its own act. We are, after all, the last major city to be without curbside recycling. When it is finally introduced later this year, it will be without the most important component, composting. Nor will it include every household, with no date even set for bringing in apartments and condos," the paper states. And, if Australia is any indication, we may even see unions wading into the issue. A major Australian union says the South Australian Government's ban on plastic bags is causing "unfair stress" on workers. The union says workers are being abused by consumers angry at the ban. "Customers go to supermarkets and they expect a plastic bag to be part of the service," union spokesperson Peter Malinouskas, of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA), told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Tag it: