Change the law, or ban bags province-wide, says report adopted by Vancouver City Council

Vancouver City Council has been trying to get traction on the plastic bag ban for almost two years. The Mayor's Greenest City Action Team issued a challenge to the province:


"Plastic bags and polystyrene foam (Styrofoam) take-out food containers, cups and utensils should be banned or taxed, as many cities and even nations have already done. (Vancouver currently lacks the statutory authority to enforce such a ban, so the provincial government should be pressured to either impose a province-wide ban or amend the Vancouver Charter to allow the city to act on its own.) Vancouver lags behind other cities (e.g. San Francisco, Toronto) in tackling these symbolic sources of trash and litter. San Francisco has achieved 94 percent compliance with its bylaw prohibiting Styrofoam and requiring all take-out food containers to be compostable or recyclable."



Pic: Vancouver Surfriders Plastic Bag Monster on the bridge to a cool planet... they hold their AGM on November 5th.

Public not fooled by plastics industry's phoney science

The plastics industry has funded a scientific study that concluded that reusable bags "pose a public health risk." Read the Vancouver Sun coverage here ~ and don't miss the comments from the readers.

The Vancouver chapter of Surfriders is asking Mayor Robertson's Greenest City Action Team to back a ban on plastic bags. Maybe they'll make a presentation to Council like this one in Santa Monica.

Pic: Treehugger/Erica Leech photo

Composting dirty diapers in Toronto ~ let's get it right

In an interesting article in the NY Times last month, Oakland was recognized for its green-waste composting program. Citizens there can compost yard waste ~ and also food waste and paper napkins.

But Toronto, it turns out is even greener. They collect dirty diapers, animal waste and kitty litter along with the food waste. They send it all to a facility to be turned into fertilizer for farmlands and parks. Dirty diapers, the article suggests, are "helping Canadian crops to grow."

Which way will we go with composting?

Metro Vancouver is in the final stages of negotiations with two companies to process organics. The Recycling Council of BC has formed an Organics Working Group that will report back to its Policy Committee in June with recommendations on best practices for organics programs.

Will Toronto be our model? Will we provide composting for dirty diapers?

We will want to look at Toronto's system top to bottom before we make up our minds. The NYT article closes with a caution: "Some of the diapers may still end up in a landfill, however, due to an overuse of plastic bags in some areas served by the Green Bin program."

Because Toronto designed their program to allow folks to wrap up their compostable organics in plastic bags, the program produces thousands of tonnes of non-compostable plastic residuals each year that have to go to landfills or incinerators to be destroyed. According to a member of RCBC's Working Group who has visited the Toronto area facility, the non-compostable residuals could run as high as 21 percent of the material collected.

The plastic in diapers would meet a similar fate.

To this blogger it does not make sense to design a composting program to take non-compostable materials. I hope that our programs clearly prohibit plastics of all types.

And I hope that we go after the producers of disposable diapers and require them to take them back ~ the way we make beverage producers take back cans and bottles.

By cleaning up after Pampers and Huggies, Toronto's program will lock in the bad design in disposable diapers that makes them hard to compost.

We should instead require the producers to come up with a design that can be composted.

Pic: Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times.

Hello 2009! Plastic bags on the wane

Have we passed a Gladwellian "tipping point" in our attitude towards plastic bags?

Canwest writer Tiffany Crawford thinks so. She muses in an article this week that "double-bagging has become the new double-dipping." As long as a year ago Crawford preciently speculated that "Plastic bags could be a thing of the past." At that time all she could point to was actions by a single grocery store (Whole Foods -- a Gladwellian "outlier") and a couple of tiny communities that had banned the use of plastic bags. But this past year many little things seem to have made a big difference, and Canada's retail industry has seen the handwriting on the wall (isn't that what marketing departments are for?). They committed to cutting plastic bag use in half in 5 years.

This is a risky move for retailers, especially at a time when they are hard hit by a recession.

But while retailers are ready to solve the problem, the plastics industry is still in denial, continuing to push for taxpayer-funded recycling programs as a solution to the plastic bag problem.

Our local stores and communities will share in the benefits of Zero Waste. The plastics industry still has to learn how to adapt.

Pic: Gladwell dot com

How to make progress

I missed the Metro Board meeting yesterday, but the coverage this morning in the Vancouver Sun suggests it was a real prattfall by the Directors.

The Sun reports that the Metro Board voted to "work with local business associations, retailers and consumers to discourage the use of plastic shopping bags" but then in the same breath disparaged that industry's offer to take responsibility for the problem.

Some working relationship!

I am no Pollyanna when it comes to voluntary industry promises, but I see in this proposal something that we can work with. A broad group of retail associations have made a commitment to cut plastic bag use in half in five years. Measurable goal, clear timeline.

Meanwhile, Councillor Hunt is counting his chickens of 60% and 70% and 75% reduction before he has hatched any program at all.

The fact is that the only people who can fix the plastic bag problem is the folks who hand out plastic bags. With proper oversight by government and the public.

Zero Waste Vancouver has sent a letter to the ministry of environment asking:

• has the retail industry has reported a baseline (the number of bags used now) for us to measure their progress against?


• will the industry be reporting to the ministry on their progress?

When industry comes to the table, play -- but make sure there is a referee. I just hope that the grocers won't take their marbles and go home, leaving their bags to "clog up our landfills" (though I'd rather have them stored safely underground than vaporized into the atmosphere in one of Marvin Hunt's planned incinerators).

Zero Waste Vancouver will watchdog this program and hold the industry's feet to the fire if they fall short, just as our friends in Australia are doing. pic: Zero Waste South Australia

Plastic bag recycling about to get much harder

The Chinese government has just announced a ban on the import of used plastic bags, according to an article published today in a plastics trade magazine.

This highlights the shaky basis of the globalized recycling industry, as the industry comes under increasing scrutiny by environmental regulators.

China is the world's largest market for used plastic bags. Many "recyclers" in North America and Europe rely on Chinese markets to take the used bags that we collect and recycle them.

Burnaby, Coquitlam, Delta, Maple Ridge, Surrey and Langley District all collect plastic bags in their curbside recycling programs. Now those bags may have to find another recycler or go to the landfill.

So why would the Chinese government ban the import of plastic bags? Environmentalists and human rights groups have been reporting problems for over a decade relating to the export of plastics and other wastes to developing countries for recycling. An international treaty was signed in 1992 to protect poor countries from becoming dumping grounds for rich countries' wastes.

Since then, there has been a move to strengthen the treaty so that rich countries couldn't ship waste to poor countries even for recycling purposes, because it is recognized how hard it is to enforce environmental and social welfare protection in poor countries.

China's plastic bag ban import ban follows an earlier ban on shipments of electronic wastes (computers, TVs, etc.). Investigations by environment and human rights groups were published as videos exposing appalling conditions in the recycling facilities.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government's ban preventing stores from handing out free plastic bags to customers has also had an impact.

CBC reported last week that China's largest manufacturer of plastic bags has laid off 10,000 workers and shut down in anticipation of lost business when the ban takes effect in time for the Beijing Olympics.

pic: www.shanghaiscrap.com

OK, so they punted it to Metro Vancouver...

... but the ball is still moving forward!

Vancouver City Council added some finesse to the strategy by clarifying that it's not just plastic bags that are the problem, but all "free" carry-out grocery bags. The fact that these are free masks the hidden cost, which is of course passed on to Mother Nature and our grandchildren, not to mention rate-payers here in the community.

When the bag issue goes to Metro Vancouver, we'll be talking about strategies to eliminate "free" bags of any sort.

This issue will not go away, even though the folks who have been enjoying the "free" ride (grocers and their bag suppliers) downplay its importance. To their credit, more and more retailers see the handwriting on the wall and are showing how easy it is to change. Whole Foods/Capers will eliminate plastic bags by Earth Day of this year. Ikea Canada has been "taxing" carry-out bags since last October. Overwaitea/Sav-On have been taking back plastic bags for years.

But that doesn't stop an estimated 12,000 tonnes of carry out bags from ending up in the region's disposal facilities each year, to say nothing of the uncounted ones in the gutters, parks and roadsides.

This week's buzz is about great coverage in the New York Times of Ireland's now legendary plastax, which a correspondent called "one of the most astounding examples of tax policy shifting consumer behavior I have ever seen!"

The NYTimes reported: "...the environment minister told shopkeepers that if they changed from plastic to paper, he would tax those bags, too.....While paper bags, which degrade, are in some ways better for the environment, studies suggest that more greenhouse gases are released in their manufacture and transportation than in the production of plastic bags."

(pic: New York Times)

Council to decide on plastic bag action

Today Zero Waste Vancouver will be on the speaker's list, along with many other organizations and concerned individual citizens, as City Council considers a motion to "phase out" plastic bags.

Will our city join the growing number of communities that are taking tough action to curb plastic bag use?

This blog has taken note of recent landmark legislation in places as diverse as China and Ireland, London UK and Leaf Rapids MB. Even Uganda has a law banning plastic bags.

The sanctions range from taxes (Ireland) to outright bans (Leaf Rapids) to retailer take-back requirements (New York City) to requirements that retailers use only biodegradable bags (San Francisco).

Politicians are safe in taking strong action on this issue, because they are responding to a deep public concern. The plastic bag has become an object of revulsion all over the world.

Photo documentation of the impacts on wildlife has put the plastics industry and the retail industry on notice: do something to clean up your act or lose the privilege of doing business.

Name-brand retailers like Ikea and Whole Foods are scrambling to claim the high ground, while their industry associations still insist that public education will solve the problem (plastic bags don't litter, people litter...).

The Retail Council's proposed fixes for Vancouver do not include retailer take-back. They haven't grasped the principle of cradle-to-cradle recycling, where producers are expected to provide take-back and recycling, rather than counting on public garbage services.

If you can handle it, here are some great online sources of ghastly photos of plastic's impact on marine life:

Planet Ark still photos

Message in the Waves videos

pic: http://www.answers.com/topic/vancouver-city-hall

Bagged again! New York City this time...

A New Yorker visiting our blog just sent this bulletin:

"The [New York] City Council on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a bill requiring large stores and retail chains to collect and recycle plastic bags they give to shoppers...."

Under the new law "The Department of Sanitation, which picks up plastic bottles, cans and newspapers, will not collect the bags. Stores will have to contract to have them removed, most likely by companies that will recycle them into new plastic bags or buy them to make into other products, such as weatherproof decking."

Congratulations, Big Apple. Now keep an eye on where the bags go for recycling. Require retailers to show that your bags won't become problems in someone else's backyard. Who ever said it would be easy being green...

Image: urbansprout

Australia gets tough(er) on plastic bags

Australia's new climate-friendly federal government has upped the pressure on retailers, promising to take measures to completely "phase out" the use of plastic bags by the end of the year. See this news coverage for details.



Peter Garrett, Australia's federal environment minister, Peter Garrett (International Herald Trib photo), said: "I think most people would like to see them rid. We think it's absolutely critical that we get cracking on it. We'd like to see a phase-out implemented by 2008."

A voluntary program approved by the former Howard government cut plastic bag use in major stores by 50%.

(Does Peter Garrett look familiar? He's the former lead singer with protest rockers Midnight Oil and ex-head of the Australian Conservation Foundation.)

Plastic bags targeted again

What do South Africa, San Francisco, Leaf Rapids (Manitoba) and China have in common? They all cracked down on stores handing out free plastic bags.

The Australian government stopped short of a legal ban, instead challenging retailers to cut back on bag use voluntarily, achieving mixed results. The Irish government imposed a punitive tax on bags and consumption quickly dropped by over 90% ~ prompting the government to ratchet up the tax even higher.

These tough actions have been popular with the public and the plastics industry is going to have to act fast to stem the rising tide of public revulsion against the ubiquitous eyesore, dubbed South Africa's "national flower" because it was littered so profusely along roadsides.

Local politicians here in the Lower Mainland are sensing which way this wind is blowing. Will we be next?

But here's something to think about: the bags are only popular because our local governments obligingly collect them from our homes and dispose of them for us.

Isn't it about time our communities stopped enabling our addiction to waste by making it so irresistably easy to get rid of all our useless throw-aways?

Are we ready to tell our politicians to put a ban on disposing of plastic bags in the city garbage? That would sure make consumers would think twice about accepting a free bag.

Let's have a public conversation about plastic bags

Once again, civic leaders in the Lower Mainland are sending a strong signal to retailers about their practice of handing out free plastic bags which become a public nuisance. An unimaginable 4 - 5 trillion of the flimsy bags were dispensed in Europe and North America in 2002, making them a visible target for public concern.

Last year North Vancouver District Council and Coquitlam City Council called for a hefty tax on plastic bags to discourage their use. Next week Vancouver City Council will consider a motion calling for a staff report on options on "phasing out" plastic bags within the city.

Both proposals have legs because they have been successfully implemented elsewhere. Ireland imposed a 25 cent PlasTax in 2002 that almost immediately reduced bag use by 90%. San Francisco considered a tax and then opted for an outright ban last March -- the first in North America.

Most importantly, these tough measures have been popular with the public, despite the plastic and retail industry doing their best to shoot them down.

It's all very well for the retailers to tout the benefits of the bags, but they don't pay the cost for the waste. It's local politicians who have to tax their communities to provide disposal services. No wonder they are turning to harsh measures! The industry has a lot to answer for.

Zero Waste Vancouver supports the motion to look at options to deal with the plastic bag problem. We would like to see Vancouver City Council convene a Waste Advisory Committee to look at this and other priority issues identified by the public and civic leaders. The committee could work with staff to explore the options, evaluate them, and come back with recommendations that would work for Vancouver.