Today the local radio station posted a news article about the fact that both Riverview and Dieppe are tabling bylaws to ban the use of single-use plastic bags. This is on the heels of the federal government’s insistence that single-use plastics be outright banned country wide by the end of 2021. I heard about this new proposed bylaw in Moncton and had hoped it wouldn’t seep its way into Riverview but sure enough it’s coming and honestly, I find it completely hypocritical.
The entire idea behind banning the bags is apparently to reduce the amount of plastic being thrown out and ending up on beaches, in our oceans, and polluting the environment. This has been the case in several other places that have already banned these bags. And for that, I’m all for it. I have nothing against taking action to try and reduce the amount of useless crap that fills our landfills and spills out into other areas. But in the Greater Moncton area, advocating for a plastic bag ban is in complete contradiction to the eco360 waste plan that was implanted a few years ago.
As anyone in the area will recall, the Greater Moncton Sewage Commission, now eco360 I believe changed their garbage collection policies and forced everyone in the city to switch to three different kinds of plastic bags to dispose of their waste. Blue for recyclables, green for bio-waste, and clear for everything else. So every single resident subjected to this new law now had to buy three different kinds of bags instead of just one in order to get rid of their trash. Plus they also put restrictions on when the different kinds of bags could be thrown out.
This was apparently done to help with the sorting process to keep bio-waste separate from actual recyclables and regular trash. But since when does it make sense to put “compost” or bio-waste in a separate bag that won’t decompose when it’s put in the ground?
That aside, garbage bags are plastic bags that have one single purpose: to throw away. These exist for no other reason than to contain all of our trash. And ever since the new laws about collection went in, we now have three times as many kinds of bags out there and every single one of them exists only to be thrown away.
So if the intent is to reduce the amount of plastic being thrown out, shouldn’t we be doing something about the actual bags that hold our garbage? The city mandated that we use more kinds of plastic garbage bags to help the environment, and now they are telling us they are going to ban all of these other “single-use” bags for the sake of good ole mother Earth? Really?
Sure, I don’t want to see oceans filled with useless plastics. I’ve seen the photos and videos of animals with junk around their necks, whales with plastics in their stomachs, and plenty of other examples of where the plastic waste has become a huge problem. And I do agree that perhaps something should be done. But you can’t stand there and tell me that it’s not ok to throw out Walmart bags but it is ok to throw out GARBAGE BAGS. THESE ARE BAGS MADE FOR ONE PURPOSE: TO BE THROWN OUT!!!!
I don’t have an answer to solving the plastics problem. I just think people need to be realistic about what they are accomplishing by banning things like grocery bags. You’re not really solving anything.
