E-town to say 'peace out' to plastic?

Edmonton city councilor, Linda Sloan has asked city staffers to look at the feasibility of banning plastic shopping bags in Edmonton retail outlets. This would make the City of Champions the first major metropolis in Canada to ban the non-biodegradable landfill-chokers. (As some of you may recall, Leaf Rapids, Manitoba (pop. 500) was the first Canadian district to do so, last year.)

As someone who already uses cloth bags when shopping at the grocery store or the mall (*pats back*), I think this is a great idea. But, I'm sure there will be plenty of naysayers who argue that we shouldn't sacrifice convenience, or that the bags get reused (which may be true), or that it is their right to use plastic bags, or whatever. To them I say: take a look at your current consumption of plastic bags. Do you really need a bag for every little purchase you make?

As a point of illustration, consider the case of Ikea.  For the last 6 months, Ikea Canada has been charging 5 cents for those big  blue and yellow bags that have come to symbolize moving out of your parent's house and/or student living.  As a result, Ikea's plastic bag demand has dropped 90 percent.

This tells us three things about what might happen if Edmonton bans plastic shopping bags: 1) the world will not implode, 2) people will realize they really don't need a plastic bag for every single purchase, and 3) Edmontonians are likely to smoothly adapt to the lessened availability of plastic shopping bags.

Thus, I say bring on the ban and let Edmonton score some environmental glory for a change (damn Calgary and their 'wind-powered C-train').

Comments

[Rob]

Would be good to have a mandatory 5 cent charge on plastic and paper bags. But perhaps you should look at http://www.angelfire.com/wi/PaperVsPlastic/

[jk]

Rob: I took an environmental design course, and part of it involved evaluating the life-cycle environmental impacts of various products. I was surprised to learn that paper bags were indeed more environmentally harmful that plastic bags on a per-bag basis, primarily because of all of the nasty chemicals used in the pulping process. My professor was on the board of the co-op grocery store in town and he had to show the calculations to his disbelieving fellow board members when they were talking about discontinuing the use of plastic bags at the store.

So, I agree: any action taken to reduce the use of plastic bags should also apply to paper bags.

[Jewel]

Thanks for the IKEA example of this. I've been trying to convince a particular friend of mine of the need to ban plastic shopping bags and couldn't find any decent stats to throw in their face (And this particular person is alllll about the numbers).

I say props to IKEA on the bags and boourns to them on their catalogues.

[Adam]

I think 5 cents a bag is too low. Maybe a 25 cent tax on each bag would be better. In this case, I favour taxation over regulation.

[Reid]

Aw, man....every Calgarian knows that Edmonton is eons ahead in the environmental game, but won't say anything about it due to embarrassment. I live in Calgary -- we can't even organize a blue box program here, never mind start looking at more sustainable consumption. I look at Edmonton's programs and the will of her citizens to get behind these initiatives with envy.

For most Calgarians, if it doesn't flip a profit or glitter and make lots of noise, it's quickly forgotten.

[Jeff J.]

In honour of this idea, from this day forward i'm going to get every bag of my groceries double-bagged, just to pick up the slack of those who stop using plastic bags as much. God bless this country!

[ch]

Reid: We'll see how Council decides on the proposed pesticide ban on June 25. That could be a chance for Calgary to shine. Edmonton seriously needs to get with it on that front.