In the News - Province to revamp legislaton around plastic

Gotta love British Columbia - it's moving ahead on a four pronged approach to reduce the amount of plastic ending up in our landfills and waterways. This is pretty good news because it's been a bit bumpy lately. Last year, the City of Victoria banned single use plastics (like plastic bags and plastic cutlery) and was taken to court by... you guessed it... the Canadian Plastic Bag Association. They said that municipalities couldn't ban single-use plastics without getting provincial approval. Huh. Well... guess what, the province is moving in that very direction, so cities like Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria will be able to amend their bylaws quite happily. Can't wait for that to happen.

As it turns out, only 40% of plastic is only used once - that's one time. Like plastic bags and straws and cutlery and disposable cups (I'm looking at you DQ). I guess the province has finally realized that the patchwork quilt of different bylaws for different municipalities is getting a bit confusing for everyone.

So... what are we looking at? Well...

1. Bans on Single-Use Packaging - plastic bags come to mind... but I wonder if it will also include things like chocolate bar wrappers and chip bags... they are nothing if not single use... I wonder what will happen with those filmy produce bags...
   
   
2. Reducing Plastics Overall - like phasing out styrofoam clamshell containers and using more recycled plastic in "new" plastic
   
   
3. Recycling More Plastics - so our recycle bins will now be able to accept things like plastic cutlery (although it should be phased out sooo...), plastic straws and sandwich bags
   
   
4. Expanding the Deposit System - the big one here will be now accepting ALL beverage containers in the deposit system - including milk beverages (milk jugs, milk cartons, YoGo drinks, etc). And... we might even move to having a drop and go system, one where you can just bring in a big bag, tag it with a barcode and then have the money eventually deposited to your account. That would be a huge step forward.
   

I'm looking forward to these changes. We can only do so much as individuals and when a province makes changes like this, it gives each of us a chance to make a bigger differnece.