Here is a letter questioning whether Guelph should ban plastic bags with a response by Councillor Vicki Beard
I expect you’ve already addressed this but why doesn’t Guelph ban plastic bags? I was impressed when I moved here at how many people are conscious of their plastic bag use, but we can always do more. It makes no sense to send them to the landfill. Either ban them or recycle them if that makes financial sense.
In Mississauga, we also had a program to purchase compost bins. The large trucks came into the communities and we could purchase them for $20 each. Everyone should be composting their kitchen waste or have the city collect it, compost it so that we can purchase it back for our gardens.
Also, if we use road salt, that should be banned as well. I believe when I lived in Mississauga we banned road salt and use sand only.
We should also change the law that bans clothes lines. Everyone should be hanging their wash outside to dry. The law was made because it was not pleasing to eye…what’s pleasing to the eye and spirit is seeing how many people are not wasting services when there is an alternative. DA
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Thank you for your email. I too don’t like using plastic bags or sending them to landfill. Councillor June Hofland had mentioned a city that had band the use of plastic bag and imposed a fine for stores using them. This might sound like a good idea but I’d like speak to some of the issues and problems that would result.
It is much easier and more democratic to educate people about the problems the use of plastic bags create in recycling, pollution and waste of energy. During this education there needs to be an alternative available.
You mentioned when you moved to Guelph you noticed how many people were conscious about they’re use of plastic bags. This has happened not through by-laws but as an awareness that cloth bags and reuse of plastic bags (reusing bags by taking them to the food stores) is cheaper. Some small downtown stores and larger grocery stores have cloth bags for sale. Customers see others using these and realize – first its cheaper as some stores charge for bags, cloth bags last longer and are environmentally friendly. It may happen slowly at first. But after a certain percentage of shoppers stop using plastic bags the cycle continues as more stores realize its cheaper for the stores to encourage customers to bring they’re own bags instead of supplying bags and/or to offer cheap cloth bags. This is suppose to work in theory I think we’re seeing a small part of it working here. I have hope.
The above is part of having an alternative available. The other part of that is finding a recyclable plastic bag for things as simple as poop and scoops, garbage, yard waste and for people that will never care about the use of plastic bags or the environment. There are such bags available but companies are still selling and will continue to sell bags that are don’t decompose because people continue to buy them.
It would be very helpful if we would convince the provincial and federal government that companies could only produce and sell compostible bags. Point source deduction would also go long way in reducing waste. One of the things you might consider is, leaving as much of the packaging as possible of purchased items at the store. Also, you can mail anything to your MP or MPP is free. Can you imagine if everyone started to mail all the big unnecessary parts of over packaging to our MP or MPP, well, we might have a new provincial law against all but the very necessary packaging.
As for recycling bags in a big way this again is very difficult as numerous bags aren’t made of the same type of plastic. To recycle plastic bags profitably companies need large quantities of the same type of bag. A company can’t stay profitable when they have to sort plastic bags especially if they don’t know the content of the plastic. This means there are very few if any companies the well deal with the recycling of plastic bags. These are just a few of the problems and alternatives to a by-law.
There is a group that sells composters, I don’t think their related or supported financially by the city. If you go to the market in the spring you will find them selling there. I’ll ask if the city is involved this. I have always built my own as I like them better. The truck going into the community does sound good, especially if it could be handled through the neighbourhood groups.
As for the use of sand instead of salt. I know that our operations department has been working on alternatives to salt. I’m not sure what the result has been.
The clothes-line issue is a condition between the seller and the buyer of the houses. I agree it really needs to be looked into. I’ve been asking about this and will keep chipping away at it. I enjoy taking the time to hang out clothes.
Vicki Beard, City Councillor Ward 2