Single Use Plastic Ban Starts This Month – Which Products Are On The List and Which One Is A Problem For Most?
The single use plastic ban starts this month here in Canada
Are you the type who will go into a mall or grocery store and walk past the shopping carts because you tell yourself that you’re just going in for one thing and then find yourself regretting that decision when your arms are full of things that weren’t on your list? Yeah, I’m in that elite group also.
Well, starting this month we’ll probably be in that same situation when we see people carrying armloads of items because they forgot to bring their reusable shopping bags with them or decided not to bring them. After all, they were just going for that one or two items on the list.
What are the single use plastics that are banned?
The ban prohibits the manufacture, import, and sale of 6 categories of single-use plastics:
Checkout bags: designed to carry purchased goods from a business and typically given to a customer at the retail point of sale. This one kind of pisses me off, but I’ll rant about that later on in this post, but right now I’ll just say that this particular ban is really stupid, I’ll explain that later in the post also.
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Cutlery: Your takeout will no longer include those plastic knives, forks, spoons, sporks, and chopsticks. So if you plan on traveling and more likely need to eat on the trip, any takeout that you get will have to be eaten using your fingers, unless you have reusable cutlery in your glovebox in your car. Or simply eat in or wait till you are home if it’s not that long of a trip. I don’t mind the ban on these items, I rarely ever used them while they were allowed in the first place. Except maybe making Dracula Teeth with the plastic fork when I was a kid, lol.
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Foodservice ware: designed for serving or transporting food or beverage that is ready to be consumed, and that
contains:
expanded polystyrene foam, extruded polystyrene foam, polyvinyl chloride, carbon black, and oxo-degradable plastic.
Are limited to the following items: clamshell containers, lidded containers, boxes, cups, plates, and bowls.
I’m surprised that these things haven’t been banned a long, long time ago. These things are awful and can be substituted with way better environmentally safe products.
Ring carriers: These are flexible and designed to surround beverage containers to carry them together. These are something that I am so glad to have made the list. I would cut these things up whenever I had the chance so some poor critter wouldn’t get strangled by it if it happened to make its way into its habitat. Luckily though, I haven’t seen these things lately because I think brands have already been phasing them out. Good riddance!
Stir sticks: These are designed to stir or mix beverages, or to prevent a beverage from spilling from the lid of its container. I’m assuming they also mean plastic cup lids. But I don’t have a problem with the stir sticks, I’m just wondering what the coffee shops are going to do to replace the plastic lids. It will be quite the show watching them trying to pass a hot cup of joe to the person through the drive-through window without a lid.
Straws include: straight drinking straws, and
flexible straws, which have a corrugated section that allows the straw to bend, packaged with beverage containers (juice boxes and pouches).
I get why they want to ban these, but I don’t usually see a lot of straws abandoned on the ground whenever I’m out for a walk. I see more cigarette butts on the ground than I do straws. I honestly don’t think banning straws should be on the list because I rarely ever see them discarded on the ground, but maybe that’s just me. But I will say that I can’t stand those paper straws! They feel so disgusting on the lips! We bought these steel ones and we have a set in the car and at home.
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The complete Single-use Plastics Prohibition Regulations – Overview can be found here.
Now for my rant
I’m pretty sure a lot of people will agree with me when I say that banning these shopping bags is a dumb idea. Sure I get the premise that these things are bad when they make their way into the ecosystem, but that’s not why I think the ban is stupid. Let me explain…
I know a lot of people, including myself, that actually reuse these plastic shopping bags by repurposing them. From carrying your work boots in them so you don’t get mud all through your car, to using them for trash bags.
Using them for trash bags I think would be the number one purpose for reusing plastic single use shopping bags. Now the government wants to ban them outright, which means that now, we have to go out and buy single use plastic garbage bags to put our trash into anyway. Plastic bags that we would normally get for free at the supermarket to reuse as trash bags are now something we have to go buy at the supermarket to put our trash into. Are you seeing my point here? Please explain to me like I’m 5 how this makes any sense.
As I mentioned above, I see more cigarette butts on the ground than I do drinking straws. If I see one straw on the ground, I’ve probably already seen 100+ cigarette butts on the ground. I bet there is a bigger problem with wildlife eating cigarette butts than plastic straws, but the government won’t talk about that considering how much tax dollars smokers pay into them. So a ban on cigarette butts will probably never happen.
If you’re wondering where you’ll get your plastic shopping bags for your under-the-sink garbage catchers go HERE. You’ll find a large assortment of plastic shopping-style bags for your under-the-sink garbage catcher. Amazon never fails to deliver anything you can think of right? LOL!
Do you still want to do the right thing for the environment?
You can still get something to substitute the single use plastic garbage bags that we’ve been using for years before the ban. You can actually get these bio-degradable garbage bags on Amazon if you really need to. Which are actually better than the regular non-biodegradable garbage bags the government is making us use now, LOL!
Conclusion…
Out of all of those items on the single use plastic ban, which one are you sad to see go, or happy to see go? Obviously, I’m not too keen on the shopping bag ban for obvious reasons that I stated. There are so many other things that people discard all over the place that should be on that list, like cigarette butts I already ranted about earlier.
Post your comments below on your thoughts on this Canada-wide single use plastic ban.
Agreed on the shopping bag for the exact same reason. I use them as garbage bags without needing to go and buy garbage bags, and I also reuse high quality ones for shopping trips or to keep things bundled together at home.
Not sure what they expect from this going forward, especially in apartments and condos. Pay 10-25 cents for a paper bag and staple it shut before chucking it down the garbage hatch? Deliberately buy/waste money on garbage bags for the same purpose (assuming those aren’t banned too)?
I think some stores were using biodegradable bags before. I wouldn’t mind if they kept offering those instead, but it looks like most places are offering their own branded canvas bags or paper bags.
It’s a relatively minor inconvenience, but still something pretty stupid (though it isn’t the first or last stupid thing government will do).
LOL! No, I don’t think this will be the last stupid thing we see coming out from the Government either. My guess is that they don’t handle their garbage and have their servants do it, so they don’t know how the average person uses shopping bags as garbage bags or other useful things.