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Single use plastic ban coming to Canada
#1
Next year Canada will be bringing in a single use plastic ban. 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/07/world/pla...index.html

Why does this matter?
Single use plastics like plastic bags, plastic straws and plastic cutlery are harming our environment. Plastic waste has invaded every part of the environment. The  oceans are full of plastic. Animals are dying because of plastic.
Canada is one of the heaviest consumers of single use plastics. We are not a big country, but we are big users of plastic.
These plastics do not recycle well and seldom end up being recycled.  For Canada to ban these plastics is a significant change. It effects the Canadian environment and the global environment since Canadian plastic ends up in the oceans.


https://oceana.ca/en/our-campaigns/plast...XkQAvD_BwE


We are going to have to learn new ways, but it will be worth it. Many people are already using reusable bags instead of plastic bags, Many of us carry reusable water bottles. Paper straws are an acceptable alternative to plastic. We can do this. Canada can ban single use plastics. If we can do it then other countries can do it. We all must give up our heavy plastic dependency. The oceans and the whole planet are drowning in plastic.  For the sake of all living creatures on the planet, we must reduce our use of plastics. A Canadian ban on single use plastics is a start.
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Catherine

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#2
I am surprised that Canada didn't do that before. Of course, I'm glad that it has been done, but it took a long time. Single use plastic bags were stopped in France in 2016! Apparently the UK hasn't gone for a total ban yet, but stores have to charge a fee for any single use bags requested.

For the worldwide picture, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_...velopments

Some USA states have done bans, but the USA Government has done nothing, nothing at all....
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#3
Canada should have done this years ago. Some cities have local bans or a fee for a single use bag. We have tried to get people to use the reusable bags in Toronto. Sadly even though many of us complied, it has lead to bag hoarding. People buy a few groceries and buy a dozen single use plastic bags. They use one and store the rest at home. Next shopping trip they do the same thing. They end up with hundreds of single use plastic bags filling cupboards and drawers. Eventually they end up in landfill with the garbage.

A country wide ban will be effective. I just hope it doesn't cause panic buying of bags. Most people should be able to transition to ecofriendly reusable bags.

The list of who has banned bags and who has not is interesting. It is also embarrassing to be a country that is just about to ban bags when you see who has already done it. We are slow to do the right thing. I just hope average Canadians cooperate with the ban.

We all know we have to cut back on the amount of plastic we use, we just don't want to be the ones who actually have to do it.
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Catherine

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#4
Even in the 1990s and the 2000s, before reusable bags became widely available, we used to reuse our single use bags. We would empty our shopping and then reuse the bags several times as house rubbish bin liners, until they became too smelly to continue, haha! They then went in the domestic rubbish, not in rivers, fields, etc. That was in the UK.

From 2004, we observed at first hand what French countryside people did. They reused the single-use bags over and over again, for swaps of fruit, vegetables, eggs, nuts, etc. between neighbours. We did the same. Nothing gets wasted in the French countryside: egg shells go in the compost (full of calcium), same for nut shells. Old egg boxes get used for germinating seeds, before being recycled eventually.

In French supermarkets, use of single-use bags were discontinued many years before the official ban. Each supermarket gave out one *free* reusable bag to each customer with a fidelity card (to avoid people asking again and again). As we has several fidelity cards with several different stores, we landed up with enough bags for all our shopping. These bags "live on" even today, as they are replaced free of charge when they get too many holes or cracks.
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#5
Quote:In French supermarkets, use of single-use bags were discontinued many years before the official ban. Each supermarket gave out one *free* reusable bag to each customer with a fidelity card (to avoid people asking again and again). As we has several fidelity cards with several different stores, we landed up with enough bags for all our shopping. These bags "live on" even today, as they are replaced free of charge when they get too many holes or cracks.
This idea I like. Our supermarket reusable bags are only a dollar, but the idea of a free bag is appealing.

France is clearly ahead of Canada in this. Some of us reuse plastic bags, but many people just discard them, often just littering at the same time. We are just as bad about plastic water bottles. We have perfectly good tap water. In the secret taste test at our Science Centre I always choose the tap water. People still insist upon buying bottled water. Then they carelessly discard the bottles.

Toronto has a recycling and composting program. The city issued large green coloured bins for food waste.  Then they reissued the green bins with racoon proof locking lids. People are terrible about using them. They toss garbage in with the food waste and food waste in with the garbage. I came home and found a racoon sitting in my garbage can eating the food waste that should have been in the locking green bin.

People in the French countryside must care about doing the right thing. That is why you are careful about recycling and composting.
Too many people in Canada don't care. They think it is too much trouble to put things in the right can.  Even when we ban single use plastics people will not comply. The cities will have to start fining people before they do the right thing.

Many Canadians do care, but so many do not.
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Catherine

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#6
I wouldn't pretend that French people in the cities act the same way as in the countryside! They are probably just as bad as in Canada or the USA, only I don't have first hand experience of living in a French city.
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#7
Maybe this is a city vs country thing. I grew up in the country and we had a compost pile and we didn't use a lot of plastics.  I don't live in the country now so I do not know what Canadian country people are like.

I think people in the city are less in touch with the land because they are surrounded by concrete. This is not true of everyone. Many are very environmentally conscious, but a lot are not. The bulk of plastic pollution comes from cities because the majority of our garbage comes from the cities. If we are going to change things and reduce plastic pollution we need to get city people to work at it. Banning single use plastics is important, but we also have to get the people to cooperate with the ban. It is going to be an uphill battle.
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Catherine

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