Many countires are going this way folks. Many cities are thinking about it. I say…why not? Check out this artilce out of today’s Mercury. What do you think Guelph? Should we do it?
High school students petition for plastic bag ban; mayor looking to province
High school students say a reduction in pollution is in the bag — as long as it’s not plastic.
Hundreds of local students recently signed a petition advocating a ban on plastic bags. Sarah Hennekens, 16, wrote and circulated the petition among her classmates at Centre Wellington District High School in April.
She took the 298 signatures to Centre Wellington township council in May.
Hennekens said the vast majority of students at her school would have signed the petition if it had more time to go around.
Plastic bags clog landfills, take a long time to decompose and harm animals that eat them, she said.
“It’s garbage that is not needed. It’s unnecessary waste,” the Grade 10 student said, adding she has never used plastic bags because she got her environmental consciousness from her parents, who prefer reusable bags.
“Now that I’m in high school, I kind of found that I have a voice and I’d like to use that,” Hennekens said, adding the environmental club at school helped with the petition.
A successful reduction of plastic bags in this area could spread to other parts of Canada, she said.
Leaf Rapids, a small town in Manitoba has already banned plastic bags. So has the city of San Francisco. And Ireland charges a levy on plastic bags that has dramatically curbed use.
Hennekens said a tax could be an effective alternative to an outright ban here.
Centre Wellington Township Mayor Joanne Ross-Zuj brought the student petition to Wellington County council where it was discussed last month.
“We do feel that it is a very good cause that we work together and try diligently to avoid the use of the plastic bags,” Ross-Zuj said.
The county does not have the jurisdiction to ban plastic bags, the mayor said, but could encourage people through education to use fewer bags and find other types of packaging.
“We’re looking for some direction from the province to control this,” she said. “We should wait to see what success that they have and how that would look in our municipality so that we’re not overstepping what legally is acceptable.”
Hennekens plans to approach chain stores in late August about voluntarily phasing out plastic bags.
“If it’s going too slow and (governments) don’t seem like they’re going to be acting upon (a ban), then I’m just going to go to the chains themselves and start locally,” she said.
David Graham said,
June 27, 2008 @ 2:20 pm
The real question is: what do we gain and what benefit do we get from _not_ banning and therefore continuing to use plastic shopping bags?
Cam Guthrie said,
June 27, 2008 @ 5:29 pm
Very good way of posing that question David. What we gain is…um…..well…it’s obvious of course….what we benefit is…….um…….yeah, having trouble with the answer…..um…..I’ll get back to you.
Cam
agrinaut said,
June 28, 2008 @ 9:12 pm
ban pbags. easy. i don’t know why the mayor would say they did not have jurisdiction. the legal wording is on the shitty leaf rapids website.
Mike Wisniewski said,
June 29, 2008 @ 3:14 pm
Hey All!
First, congrats Cam on your 40 under 40
Anyway, I was actually there at that council meeting when young Sarah came forward with her petition.
It is good to see such young people getting involved, however, I have to disagree with her cause, or at the very least, the means by which she wishes to serve her cause. The cause itself is quite noble actually.
I just don’t believe it is the right of government to tell a business how it can service it’s customers.
The article also mentions that she will be approaching businesses directly, asking them to stop using plastic bags. That, I think, is the better means to an end. People, and businesses, have to want to do this, you can’t just MAKE them. That’s when I have to rattle the ol’ sabre and hit the warpath.
That’s my 3 cents
Bye for now
Cam Guthrie said,
July 1, 2008 @ 8:38 pm
Here’s some more on this posting from the editors of the Guelph Mercury:
J
June 30, 2008
The Guelph Mercury
Are you old enough to remember a time before plastic bags? A time when your groceries or other purchases were stuffed exclusively in brown paper bags or cardboard boxes? Most of us don’t, and Sarah Hennekens and her classmates at Centre Wellington District High School are certainly among them.
But if these young students have their way, we would return to such an era. In the spring, hundreds of students at the Fergus high school affixed their names to a petition drawn up by 16-year-old Hennekens, with assistance from the school’s environment club, that advocates a ban on plastic bags. In May, the petition was presented to Centre Wellington township council.
If these activist students had dropped by Queen’s Park, they might have successfully solicited the signature of provincial Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory, who last month challenged Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty to ban the use of plastic bags in all stores across the province.
The challenge came as McGuinty praised the LCBO for phasing out the use of its thick plastic bags, becoming the first retailer in Ontario to do so. The move will mean 90 million fewer plastic bags will be heading to landfill. But with 3.5 billion plastic shopping bags used in the province each year — and an average of 400 years for these bags to decompose in the dump — those who want to see an end to their use have a long way to go.
McGuinty, not surprisingly, hopes the example of the province’s liquor stores will catch on, but he doesn’t expect to see a provincewide ban, and neither do we, even though it would hardly be setting a precedent. That distinction resides with the 500 residents of Leaf Rapids, Man., who opted last year for an outright ban on plastic shopping bags, becoming the first North American community to do so. Since then, two California cities — San Francisco and Oakland — have banned plastic bags at supermarkets and pharmacies, and the state of California requires all supermarkets there to take back and recycle plastic bags.
Other jurisdictions, notably Ireland, require retailers to impose an added fee — 22 cents in that country’s case — on each plastic bag used by a customer. The money is earmarked for recycling programs, and this extra fee has resulted in a dramatic decline in the number of plastic bags used in Ireland.
There are practical ways short of a ban of weaning us off our plastic shopping bag habit and these jurisdictions are showing the way. It’s time for this province to start following their example.