Some use them to tote their groceries, their lunch, or to line kitchen garbage bins and our dependence on plastic bags has prompted one city councillor to call for a levy on the disposable items.
Ontarians throw away about two and a half billion plastic bags in a single year, which works out to about four per person per week. Coun. Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38 - Scarborough Centre) wants to reduce those numbers dramatically - 80 to 90 percent - by introducing a 25-cent per bag levy.
"It is a lot of money, and it's a lot of waste that's being created and it's a lot of energy being consumed to create a product that really is very, very bad for the environment," he said Friday.
"So what this would do, hopefully, is encourage people to go to cloth bags, paper bags and reusable bags."
Successful projects overseas have proven that it isn't hard to get people to reduce the amount of plastic bags they use, and quickly.
"It's very doable. It's been done and it's proven massively successful in places like Ireland and in England where it's been implemented," De Baeremaeker explained. "Ireland is the most famous example where they reduced the volume of plastic bags being used by 90 per cent in just one year."
Plastic bags take, on average, about 400 years to decompose and when they do they release harmful chemicals into the water and soil. Animals consume them and get sick and die, and they're spotted floating in waterways around the world, even as far north as the Arctic Ocean.
Some large grocery chains have apparently already expressed a desire to reduce the amount of wasteful bags they use and are currently looking for ways to do that. And De Baeremaeker plans to speak with members of the fast food industry to get them to do the same.
But not all grocery store chains believe the levy is needed.
"At Loblaws we've always been ahead of the curve in offering consumers an alternative way. We have green bins and we've had canvas bags in the stores many years," Liz Margles of Loblaws said.
A&P also sells re-usable cloth grocery bags.
Meanwhile, the city is planning to follow in the footsteps of other municipalities, like Peel Region and Kingston, and start recycling plastic bags next year - a move the plastic industry prefers to a levy.
Countries or cities with bans, taxes or campaigns in place to ban plastic bags:
Australia,
Bangladesh,
Botswana,
Eritrea,
Ireland,
Italy,
Paris,
Mumbai, India
South Africa
Taiwan,
Tanzania
Of the countries that have either banned the bags or instituted taxes on them, use has fallen from 69-90 percent.
How does the Irish tax plan work?
No one likes taxes. But if we're going to consider instituting one here, it might be worth seeing how it's worked elsewhere.
Ireland became the first country to officially impose a tax on the bags in 2002. Consumers pay 15 cents per sack every time they go through a supermarket checkout. Don't use one and you don't pay the levy.
Bags that are described as being 'heavy weight and reusable' and those that are used to wrap fish, poultry or meat are exempt.
In the first two years of the tax, officials raised a stunning Cdn.$45.3 million in revenues, with all the money going towards recycling programs and not general revenues, a key factor in why it's worked.
In fact, since the plan came into effect, use of plastic shopping containers in the country has shrunk by 90 percent, with more than 1 billion fewer bags in use. To read more about the success of the program,
click here.
The 3Rs of plastic bags,
courtesy of Environmental Action Barrie (Barrie, Ont.):
- Reuse old shopping bags when you go shopping.
- When shopping buy a tote bin in which to carry your groceries.
- For small items, refuse a plastic bag.
- Bring your own canvas tote bags.
- The person who delivers your newspaper really appreciates your returning the blue or green plastic bags to be reused, as they have to pay for them.
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