April Lindgren
CanWest News Service

TORONTO - Ontario’s environment minister is calling on Ontarians to voluntarily reduce their plastic bag use by 50 per cent over the next five years even as critics dismiss the provincial goal as an ineffective public-relations ploy.

“The voluntary approach is a ticket for continuing the status quo,” Franz Hartmann, executive director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance said Wednesday following the announcement by Laurel Broten. “The government could have said they either were going to ban plastic bags or they could have said they were going to impose a significant plastic bag fee like they’ve done in Ireland.

“The impression that’s left with me is that they are not all that serious about actually eliminating plastic bags.”

Central to the government plan is a deal struck with the plastics, retail and grocery industries whereby companies have agreed to reduce plastic bag use by 50 per cent or one billion bags over the next five years. Retailers have also committed to “considering” in-store recycling depots for the bags and pilot projects are being set up to determine how to get consumers to convert to reusable bags.

“We need to see real and demonstrable progress on this issue,” Broten told reporters. “That’s why the agreement also includes annual monitoring and public reporting to ensure that programs are in place right across the province to meet the goals that we have established.”

Sources familiar with the negotiations, however, say the provincial government moved away from tougher measures in the face of strong industry opposition.

“Earlier on this year, the discussions on what to do with plastic bags were a hell of a lot more intrusive and more meaningful than what we got today,” said one observer. “There was a tremendous amount of backlash from the plastics industry.”

Ontarians use an estimated 80 plastic bags per second - about seven million per day.

Tammy Smitham, director of communications for A&P Canada, said the company sees reusable bags and recycling as the best solution to plastic bag proliferation.

“Plastic bags are targeted because they are visible and you see them every day but most people reuse them before they end up in the garbage,” she said, noting a ban can have unintended consequences such as a surge in purchases of plastic garbage and other bags.

In addition to selling more than 500,000 reusable bags to date, A&P stores in 2006 recycled about 60 billion used plastic bags through their drop-off recycle depots.

Conservative Leader John Tory said he had no problem with the government’s decision to adopt a voluntary approach but he questioned the five-year time line.

“What’s lacking here is any real sense of urgency or any real sense of a deadline,” he said. “It’s four years late in coming and I think it is lacking in ambition.”

NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns characterized Broten’s plan as a “promise that frankly she’s never going to have to deliver on. It’s two elections from now.”

Tabuns the Liberals have come no where near fulfilling their promise to divert 60 per cent of waste from landfills by the time of the next election on Oct. 10, 2007. Currently only 32 per cent of residential and 20 per cent of industrial, commercial and institutional waste is diverted.

A proposal to put a 25 or 30 cent tax on plastic bags is expected to go to Toronto city council this fall.

In April, Leaf Rapids, a small community in Manitoba, became the first Canadian jurisdiction to introduce a total ban.

In 2002, Ireland imposed a tax of about 22 cents on plastic bags and saw demand plummet. San Francisco announced in March that a ban on plastic bags in grocery stores and pharmacies would go into effect after a six-month adaptation period for retailers.

© CanWest News Service 2007