Canadians take home an estimated 55 million single-use plastic bags per week. That's nearly 3 billion bags a year!

In April 2007 Leaf Rapids, Manitoba, became the first town in Canada to officially ban plastic bags. Their bylaw prevents retailers from selling or distributing single-use bags.

Ignoring the ban could result in a $1,000-a-day fine. In May of the same year, Tofino, BC, passed a plastic bag ban by resolution of council. Their ban is not entrenched in a bylaw, so it has been left up to merchants and residents to voluntarily comply.

In January 2008, Huntingdon became the first Quebec municipality to ban plastic bags at store checkout counters. Their bylaw means no retail outlet can distribute plastic bags, no advertiser can deliver fliers in plastic bags, and residents are not supposed to line their garbage bins with green plastic bags.

San Francisco, in 2007, became the first city in North America to ban the use of traditional plastic grocery bags. San Francisco's law prohibits large grocery stores and drugstores from using nonrecyclable and nonbiodegradable plastic bags made from petroleum products; supermarkets were given six months to comply while drugstores had up to one year.

Following in San Francisco's footsteps, a host of other American cities including Boston, New York, Phoenix,
Santa Cruz and Portland are considering
similar measures.

Internationally, one of the earliest actions against plastic bags took place in Ireland in 2002, where litter from them was getting out of hand. Ireland passed a tax on plastic bags and within weeks plastic bag use and the resulting litter problem dropped 94 per cent.

www.pebpond.com

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