City to ban all plastic bags
All day I’ve been hearing how the city’s going to ban all plastic bags after this year, but nobody is saying shopping bags. Garbage and recycling will presumably still go out in plastic bags.
It’s a gesture, but I’m not sure it’s the most significant we could be making.
Ian 08:46 on 2020-02-06 Permalink
I think the distinction here is that it’s not just grocery bags, it’s bags from all retail. I’m not sure if that includes the thin produce bags used in the fruit and vegetable sections of grocery stores but I guess we’ll see soon enough.
About a week ago I heard a person getting interviewed on CBC radio and the interviewer brought up the example of the Montreal bag ban that just made stores switch to heavier bags that still ended up not getting recycled. The person being interviewed responded that if the plastic bag ban was put in place and people simply switched to heavier plastic bags that still end up not getting recycled, that’s a flaw in planning on the part of the government.
I guess somebody mentioned that interview to Plante, and since the city clearly can’t get recycling figured out, the only solution she and her team of experts could come up with was a total ban. It’s better than nothing and is kind of an obvious response to the problem of too many plastic bags… but I’m with the person on CBC – the first “ban” wasn’t really thought through very well.
Kate 09:11 on 2020-02-06 Permalink
I just retweeted Tim Forster’s tweet that what Plante should ban next is the sale of bottled water.
jeather 14:14 on 2020-02-06 Permalink
If we had free actually cold water fountains everywhere instead, maybe (though if you’re certain kinds of immunocompromised you can’t use water fountains [because of other people, not because of the city water] and need a factory packaged drink, and even people who bring their own water bottles can spill or just run out and need more).
The problem is not that individuals use plastic straws, but we continue to pretend it is.