13 responses for this post

1. Soosan on Thursday, December 04, 2008 at 9:37 am

   The other important change is we’ll be charged 5 cents for a plastic bag in all stores… which I am very happy about. A lot of people here do use re-usable bags, but I’m glad that more will start. Some critics are angry that stores aren’t forced to use the new income for environmental initiatives, which is a valid point, however if you really don’t want the store to get your 5 cents, then bring a freaking bag!

2. shannon b. on Thursday, December 04, 2008 at 11:30 am

   And the bootlegging begins…

3. Maggie on Thursday, December 04, 2008 at 2:39 pm

   I don’t understand why we’re banning biodegradable/compostable plastic. Does it break down into something hazardous, is that why? I thought previously the goal was to develop biodegradable plastic!

   I have been shopping at stores that charge a nickel for bags for ages, that’s nothing new to me. Even reusing bags to avoid the nickel charge and using the bags for other things, I still end up with more bags than I can use!

4. freakgirl on Thursday, December 04, 2008 at 2:44 pm

   I was wondering that, too, about the biodegradable plastic.

5. Soosan on Thursday, December 04, 2008 at 2:51 pm

   As someone who works with garbage for a living (rather, reducing garbage), it’s my understanding that the research isn’t there yet on biodegradable plastics on how fully they biodegrade, as well as the length of time (how many years, not days). As well, when placed in a landfill, things take much longer to break down. So I think the banning of them is to place a greater emphasis on re-using more sustainable products, then creating new ones that will break down, but not for a long time.

6. Soosan on Thursday, December 04, 2008 at 2:58 pm

   Here, this has some good info:

   http://www.science.org.au/nova/061/061key.htm

   Basically, unless you compost these items, they will take much longer to break down. Toronto actually has a green bin (compost) system, so now I’m confused. Maybe they’re worried people won’t dispose of them effectively.

7. Maggie on Thursday, December 04, 2008 at 3:18 pm

   This is why I don’t understand the ban. Unless the plastics are breaking down into something hazardous, I don’t see why we would ban biodegradable plastics but not other plastics; it seems counterproductive. If they biodegrade safely, even if it takes a long time, isn’t it still better to have plastics that break down rather than plastics that don’t? There must be something fundamental I don’t understand, because why would the gov’t choose to do something nonsensical?

   We’ve had green bin for years already while we were still living at my mom’s (since June 2003), and soon after we moved out we got it in our town, too. So I’ve been living with green bin for five years now. You can use plastic bags to dispose of the compost into the green bin, as long as you don’t tie them because when the compost is brought to the facility, workers actually separate the bags from the organic waste. Not a job I’d like, thank you!

   What I don’t understand is why can’t these shopping bags be recycled somehow, like milk jugs or pop bottles? They are recyclable, but our recycling program won’t take them.

8. freakgirl on Thursday, December 04, 2008 at 3:26 pm

   You can’t take your plastic bags back to the store for recycling? That’s what we have to do. The produce plastic bags we get are accepted by our recycling program, though, which is nice.

9. Soosan on Thursday, December 04, 2008 at 3:26 pm

   Ironically, Toronto will soon be accepting plastic bags again for recycling.

   And yeah….oh my gah, I can’t believe what’s going on with our gov’t as a whole lately… but that’s a whole other topic.

10. sandra on Thursday, December 04, 2008 at 4:08 pm

    I think a big part of it is that there is cost to recycling, so the less there is to recycle the more cost effective it is for the city.

11. Soosan on Thursday, December 04, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    Most definitely! And a large part of recycling is having the right buyers for the end product. I’m not sure what kind of mush bags make, but I do know that the process of recycling plastics into new items takes a lot more energy, then say a can, that can be turned right back into another can.

12. Nicci J on Thursday, December 04, 2008 at 4:44 pm

    Maggie, I don’t know if you read about our super green bin prgram, but apparently they started it too soon. They only have the ability to process a small portion of it, and guess where the rest has been going? Silly municipality

13. Maggie on Thursday, December 04, 2008 at 6:03 pm

    I didn’t find any evidence of the organic waste actually going to landfill, but I found this article that says 33% of it is being shipped of to NY state for incineration. And apparently they’re only operating at 10% capacity, but that’s due to odour, not inability. Because of diapers.

    http://www.yorkregion.com/News/article/79307

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