Jeff Lucas and Meaghan Cursons get down and dirty to demonstrate how bad single-use plastic bags are for the environment.
Photo by Boomer Jerritt
Plastic or paper? The correct answer is “Neither, thank you—I have my reusable bag with me.”
The “scourge” of plastic bags is an issue making headlines across the country and around the world. Just this past week four major retail associations in Canada pledged to work to reduce plastic bag use by 50% before 2013. But as industry and government scramble to mitigate the negative environmental impacts of disposable plastics and race to develop alternatives, some communities are taking the issue into their own hands. The Comox Valley is one such community.
The biggest problem with plastic bags is that unless they are picked up by wind, water or wildlife, they don’t really go anywhere. Plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to break down. When you think about how many of those plastic bags go to our landfill each week, then multiply that by the population of the Comox Valley and then by 52 weeks in a year, you begin to see the size of the problem. Magnify that by six billion—the population of the world—and it becomes unfathomable.
The upside of the plastics story is that both the Comox Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) are launching campaigns in which the business community and the public can work together to make better choices— for a better future.
“The Chamber of Commerce Advocacy Committee set some exciting goals for this year. These goals include a focus on environmental sustainability and pro-active business leadership,” says Jeff Lucas, Chamber board member and Chair of the Comox Valley EnviroBag Project. “After much discussion we set our sights on a campaign to dramatically reduce and eventually eliminate single-use plastic bags in our community. To achieve this we needed to come up with a strategy to support business of all shapes and sizes in their ability to provide an affordable reusable option for their customers.”
To this end, the Chamber is brokering the one-time purchase of 75,000 recycled, re-usable bags, which are to be sold at cost to participating businesses in the Valley. Each participant—whether they are a multi-national corporation or sole trader—will pay the same price for these bags. Some can opt to personalize them with individual logos while others are working with the valley-wide branding offered by the Chamber. The launch date for these bags to appear in retail outlets is February, 2009.
“To date more that 45,000 bags have been ordered and the rate of participation is growing exponentially,” says Meaghan Cursons, who is working with the Chamber to bring this initiative to life. “This has caught on like wildfire because when it comes down to it, we see that the business community really wants to so the right thing! Too often the issues and the options related to waste reduction can seem overwhelming. That’s why we are focusing on a tangible and ‘doable’ step.”
The Chamber’s deadline to secure participants in the Comox Valley EnviroBag order is October 20. Retailers and client centred businesses or organizations can order any number of the uniquely designed Comox Valley EnviroBags and become part of a community-wide campaign to promote their use.
As part of this campaign the Chamber will work with the CVRD and others to spread the word to their members and to the public about the importance of the community working together to dramatically impact the number of single-use bags distributed and disposed of in the Valley.
Simultaneously, the Comox Valley Regional District is working on their own public education campaign—The Power of R; Rethink, Reuse, Recycle, Reduce. The annual Waste Reduction Week, running right across the nation from October19 to 25, focuses on waste management issues and providing the public with an understanding of choices available and how best to utilize them.
Their campaign will detail how we, the consumer, can cut down on real waste at the local landfill. “Solid waste generation in the CVRD Waste Management Area has increased 50 per cent over the past five years,” says Wendy Schebel, CVRD coordinator, operational education and events. “If it continues at this rate both of our landfill sites will be full by 2015.”
A landfill, Schebel explains, is an ecosystem in itself, and although there is very advanced technology available for their management, it is not all available here in the Comox Valley. “There are all sorts of risks in creating another landfill, so anything we can do to reduce our waste generation is very important. If we use items that are recyclable then everything can be put to better use,” says Schebel. “We can’t afford not to be good at rethinking, reducing, reusing and recycling.”
The CVRD is also engaging with the youth community in this educational process—both as students and teachers. A video competition for 8-12 year olds, which winds up on October 17, asks youngsters to submit a 60 second video clip as individuals or as a school class with their viewpoint on the Power of R—transit, water or nature issues. There are great prizes to be won, including a waste free lunch for an entire class.
Working toward a ‘greener’ Halloween, the CVRD has also purchased 1,000 reusable bags that will be given away with every purchase of a book of 10 tickets for a youth swim or skate at the Comox Valley Sports or Aquatic Centres. The tickets, valid until December 31, 2008, are $10 for a book and provide a healthy alternative to candy.
The CVRD has also pledged to purchase 5,000 of the Chamber’s Comox Valley EnviroBags, which they will distribute through various promotions next year.
And there is more good news for this initiative. Later this year The Home Depot is piloting their own scheme to ban single-use plastic bags in their stores; that’s quite a lot of bags from a corporation that has more than 2,000 outlets. That plan starts in just three branches, one of which is the Courtenay store.
Other local businesses have also already taken steps to reduce bag use. Seeds Natural Food Market in Cumberland has been 100 per cent single-use bag free since they opened. They are working with other Cumberland downtown retailers to participate in a group order. From liquor outlets to gift shops and from hardware stores to realtors—the Comox Valley business community is stepping up to the challenge.
There is a staggering amount of information available about the costs of single-use plastic bags—all of which leads to a clear conclusion. We must address our rate of consumption and start making better choices about the waste we make in order to ensure the health of our communities and the planet. The Comox Valley is known as one of the most beautiful places in the world and is seems only right that the residents of this community would want to help keep it that way—driving a citizen and business-led campaign that pre-empts legislation or a bag tax from our government
“That is why the Comox Valley Chamber of Commerce is focusing their energy on a business-led voluntary campaign,” says Lucas. “We hope to be catalysts for an important step in the way we think about single-use bags. It is not our goal to be long-term managers. This one time initiative aims to get the discussion going so that we can start to work together to make better choices and create a better future for our children and grandchildren.”
While many retailers now supply degradable or biodegradable bags, these bags still place pressures on our landfills and require certain conditions to break down properly. While paper may be a better option in terms of decomposition, paper bags still require energy to produce, not to mention the cutting down of trees for materials. A reusable bag, on the other hand, can be used again and again—and only needs to be used five times to make a positive impact on the environment.
Giving up the plastic bag is not a new idea and is already working in other communities and countries. In January this year Whole Foods Market, the world’s largest natural-food retailer, announced the end of plastic bag use at their checkouts in a total of 270 stores across North America and the UK. Around the same time China introduced a ban that stopped shop owners from giving out single-use bags. Similar bans have been introduced in Ireland, Scandinavia, Australia and several other countries. Awareness is clearly growing. In London, England, more than 30 municipalities are working to initiate a ban and the same process is happening in New York. San Francisco became the first US city to adopt a ban earlier this year.
Closer to home, similar voluntary bans are happening in Rossland and Whistler, BC thanks to the efforts of Tracey Saxby, an Australian who now calls BC her home. The village of Coles Bay in Tasmania, which attracts about 25,000 tourists every year, successfully banned bags in 2003.
Residents in Leaf Rapids, Manitoba became ‘Bag Free’ in April 2007 when the council there gave out more than 5,000 reusable bags to the 500 residents.
Easy for a small community to achieve, you might say, but if every single person in the community made some effort to give up on plastic bags, to say no thank you to plastic or paper, what a difference that could and would make to our Valley.
Bags are for sale for 82 cents each for the Comox Valley branded bags, in any quantity. Company logos and artwork can be added for an additional fee. Deadline to order EnviroBags is October 20, 2008.
For more information about the CVRD waste management initiatives visit www.comoxvalleyrd.ca.