Clerk's Office Plastic Bag Bylaw From
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Subject: ATTN: Clerk's Office Plastic Bag Bylaw From: "Judy MacLeod" Sent: 2020-01-15 3:19:19 PM To: "Clerks Office" <[email protected]>; CAUTION: This email originated from outside your organization. Exercise caution when opening attachments or clicking links, especially from unknown senders. ATTN: Clerk's Office I beg you to reconsider a part of your plastic bag bylaw. The part where the customer is charged for the bag. What ever happened to customer service? A company wants me to shop at their store, they went out of their way to attract my business. Charging me for a bag is NOT good business. What it does is download or offload or whatever you want to call it, all responsibility to the customer/consumer. WHY? Put the onus on the companies and/or corporations to reduce their packaging. Charge them for excessive packaging. STOP taking it out on the customer, we're not given any choice. Please try and adopt this outlook for the benefit of your taxpayers instead of dumping yet more charges and fees on them. Respectfully yours, Judy MacLeod Subject: Plastic Bag Bylaw From: "John Vanderwerf" Sent: 2020-01-31 11:02:33 AM To: "Clerks Office" <[email protected]>; CAUTION: This email originated from outside your organization. Exercise caution when opening attachments or clicking links, especially from unknown senders. I hope I am not to late to have my say on this subject. I do not want the town to pass a bylaw saying we cannot have plastic bags. I am happy to be charged for them. I use them around the house all the time, although not for garbage of course. When I remember, I take my reusable bags to the store with me, but I don’t always have my car and being of a certain age, I sometimes forget to take them. Charge me please, but don’t take away options. Thank you, Terri Vanderwerf . Mono, Ont INTRODUCING THE NEW AND IMPROVED REUSABLE BAG 100% RECYCLABLE – 40% RECYCLED CONTENT – 125 REUSES MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY – MEANS ZERO WASTE Mayor Laura Ryan & Council 347209 Mono Centre Road Mono, ON L9W 6S3 Dear Mayor Ryan and Council Members: Prior to this submission we sent you two plastic bags via Canada Post– a reusable bag made from plastic and typical of most of the reusable bags on the market. We have also enclosed and a new and improved reusable bag very much like the bag being used in the State of California. We sent you these bags to make a point – governments at all levels must stop banning recyclable packaging in favour of non-recyclable packaging. As you know, the thin plastic bag you want to ban is recyclable and is highly reused. PROBLEM: REUSABLE BAGS CANNOT BE RECYCLED. Most people do not realize that the reusable bags on the market, even though 90% of them are made from plastic cannot be recycled. As a result, once they wear out, they will be thrown out as garbage and end up clogging our landfills; wasting valuable resources. This makes achieving zero waste impossible. SOLUTION: INTRODUCE A 100% RECYCLABLE REUSABLE BAG LIKE CALIFORNIA. Encourage and promote the adoption of a new polyethylene reusable bag that is 100% recyclable and contains recycled content. It is being adopted as we speak in jurisdictions across North America; in particular California has mandated this bag. Benefits – its introduction has environmental, economic and social benefits. Environmental - Can be reused 125 times - Is 100% recyclable - Can be recycled locally using existing infrastructure - Helps reduce GHG emissions and carbon emissions as current reusables like the current reusable bags are more resource and carbon intensive - Makes zero plastic waste and circular economy possible Economic - Since the bags are made in Canada and not China, creates thousands of Canadian jobs - 40% recycled content creates built-in markets for local recycled resin - Extends life of the local landfill - Eliminates the waste of valuable used plastic which should never end up in landfill Social - Again, creates and supports Canadian jobs spreading economic prosperity - Affordable I will be attending Mono Council meeting on February 11. We look forward to hearing how Council will proceed with improved environmental, economic and social sustianability solutions on bag management with these new facts and that also involves working in collaboration with industry, the Province and residents. Yours truly, Joe Hruska Vice President Sustainability Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA) 416-930-1796 905-678-7748 August 2, 2018 Mr. Mark Early CAO/Clerk Town of Mono Dear Mr. Early: RE: July 24 th Council Referral of the Bag Issue for Study after Deputation Climate Change Action (CCAD) Deputation The Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA) has a long tradition working with municipalities to build solutions on plastic packaging and ensure that all decisions made on plastic shopping bags in the name of the environment are made based on science and fact. The purpose of this letter is to continue that tradition and be helpful in any way we can. At the last council meeting on July 24 th following a deputation by CCAD, staff was directed to investigate the feasibility of implementing a bylaw to ban plastic bags, and to undertake a social media campaign to educate residents on the impact plastic bags have on the environment. The scientific evidence does not support the CCAD recommendation to make a wholesale shift to reusable bags because reusable bags do not perform as well environmentally as the conventional thin plastic shopping bag. It should also be noted that they are NOT recyclable in North America. The following, we believe, will be helpful in your investigation. THE FACTS – THIRD PARTY INDEPENDENT STUDIES AND SCIENCE 1. Plastic Shopping Bags are NOT Single-Use This is a highly complex issue. Our biggest concern is that CCAD, like many others, persist in calling plastic shopping bags – “single-us” plastic shopping bags when in fact they are not. Plastic shopping bags are multi-use, multi-purpose bags that are reused for a wide variety of purposes; the most common is to manage household waste. There is ample independent, third-party research that affirms this point. The Quebec Government Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) released this past January stated that77% of all plastic shopping bags are reused in Quebec; data from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment has plastic bag reuse by Ontario residents at 60% in line with a 60% reuse rate in B.C. 5955 Airport Road, Suite 125, Mississauga, ON L4V 1R9 t. 905.678.7748 • f. 905.678.0774 • www.plastics.ca Evidence Quebec Government Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) - page 3 – 77% reuse https://monsacintelligent.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/ENGLISH_FINAL-Quebec-LCA- Highlights.pdf; “The conventional plastic bag has several environmental and economic advantages. Thin and light, its production requires little material and energy. It also avoids the production and purchase of garbage/bin liner bags since it benefits from a high reuse rate when reused for this purpose (77.7%).” U.K. Government Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) – page 30 – 76% reuse https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_dat a/file/291023/scho0711buan-e-e.pdf “Overall it was estimated that 76 per cent of single use carrier bags were reused. The study also asked respondents how they reused carrier bags and found that 53 per cent of respondents said that they used carrier bags as a replacement for kitchen bin liners,” Ontario Government Bag Reduction Program – page 2 – 59.1% reuse https://monsacintelligent.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ONTARIO-BAG-REDUCTION- Progress-Report-November-26-2010_FINAL.pdf 2. Complex Issue – “Bag Bans are very Disruptive” according to the CCAD We believe that there are better solutions to reduce the number of plastic shopping bags distributed to limit their use to only “essential” bags; that is bags that are absolutely necessary. Study after study shows that bag bans don’t work and have negative unintended consequences. Evidence Even the CCAD presentation understands that there are serious problems with bag bans. They acknowledge on slide 9 that bag bans can deliver big bag reductions “but are disruptive and can risk other unintended consequences.” The CCAD unfortunately does not spell out the unintended consequences. So what are they? 1. You end up with a lot more plastic going to landfill. Plastic shopping bags represent less than 1% of landfill, but with a ban in place, consumers start to buy thicker plastic kitchen catchers to manage their household waste. These bags contain as much as 80% more plastic than the thinner 17 micron bags. So a ban on plastic shopping bags does not reduce the amount of waste in the waste stream. Mono will end up with MORE not less plastic in the waste stream and going to landfill. 5955 Airport Road, Suite 125, Mississauga, ON L4V 1R9 t. 905.678.7748 • f. 905.678.0774 • www.plastics.ca City of Toronto Audit – Page 17 of 61 – Plastic bags 0.8% of the waste stream http://thecif.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/873-Toronto_Final_Report.pdf 2. 100% of the Reusable Bags will end up in the landfill because they are NOT RECYCLABLE . Reusable bags are not recyclable in Canada and so at the end of their life, residents will have no choice but to throw them out as garbage where they will be sent to landfill; as Municipal Solid Waste (MSW). Since the average Non-woven polypropylene reusable bag weighs 92 grams (60 for the bag and 32 for the insert) and the conventional bag only weighs 8 grams, which means there will be a lot more plastic going to landfill following a ban on plastic shopping bags.