Did you hear that the city of the universe of Toronto has become the first major Canadian city to do away with single-use plastic shopping bags.
It was really strange – Toronto city council passed a motion to scrap the five-cent tax on each bag — a move supported by Mayor Rob Ford.
Moments later, council went further by voting 24-to-20 to ban the bags altogether starting next January 1, 2013 on the grounds they’re bad for the environment.
Just last month, Los Angeles became the biggest American city to pass such a ban so it has happened before but their ban will be phased in over 12-months.
After that, LA retailers will charge shoppers 10-cents per paper bag.
We use plastic shopping bags to take out rubbish so we do not find them wasteful.
If the city of Victoria ever banned plastic bags we would be OK with it because we are fairly prepared but I do feel they should lower the price of recyclable bags.
A simple ban is not the answer, food packaging and other waste is more important to take a closer look at – have the food manufacturer’s even been consulted?
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Comox Valley has encouraged people to use their own shopping bags for a few years now. Everyone I know has their own bags that they’ve bought for about $1 each. Most stores charge for plastic bags if you forget to bring yours. The system seems to be working well & less plastic bags get thrown in the garbage.
Fort McMurray is a city. They’ve had a plastic bag ban for a couple of years now.
Toronto stores used to have to charge for plastic bags, but found out that the stores were KEEPING the money and it wasn’t going to where it should have gone.
I live in a suburb of Toronto and this doesn’t really affect me, but have family members who live there that love the plastic bags to reuse as garbage bags. I guess they will be coming to either shop where I live, or asking me to save mine for them.