BYOBag
I’m happy to see that Kingston has been making efforts in the last year to encourage residents to get green with composters and rain barrels. So far it seems Kingstonians are up for it. Now, a new and interesting challenge has been presented by Tara Natural Foods owner Rudi Mogl.
Tara has always used recycled plastic bags donated by customers. Although this was a great way to reuse, it still meant that the bags would eventually wear out and get thrown away with the trash. Trying to find a solution to the problem, Mogl invested in bags made of corn starch, guaranteed to decompose within two months. The bags were a great idea but just too expensive. Now the store has 4000 or them to finish off before they ban plastic bags all together. Mogl has decided to provide paper bags only and they come with a price tag of $0.10 each. The idea is to encourage people to carry their own reusable bags.
Reusable bags have become pretty popular (ahem, trendy) in the last couple of years yet I still see many folks coming out of Food Basics or Loblaws with their crisp, white grocery bags loaded in the cart. Perhaps the steps being taken at Tara will get people into better bag-toting habits and more importantly, maybe we’ll see some other stores in town follow suit. Did you know that we throw away over 150 tons of plastic every year? (yes, that’s just us in Kingston.) Just thought I’d throw that in in case you aren’t convinced. Let me know what you think about a plastic bag ban. Think we could make it city wide?
I am all for a plastic bag ban, and while we’re at it, we should look to other cities who have done more like deterring the sale of bottled water. We have pretty drinkable water in Kingston, and reusable containers aren’t hard to come by.
I agree Harvey, Bottle water is my biggest pet peeve. They should ban it outright if tap water is available.
Also, you should never reuse a plastic bottle, your more likely to have leaching of Bisphenol A.
Ban, ban, ban… Will it ever end?
How about allowing people to CHOOSE what they wish to carry their groceries in? I am paying for that privilege, after all…
Not to mention I use those shopping bags for disposing of items such as kitty litter, non-recyclable kitchen waste, etc. So in fact they are being re-used. I don’t think paper bags will quite cut it for that sort of purpose, but the trendy “ban everything” enviro-warriors never think of anyone but themselves…
The fact that my choice is being taken away, and that on top of that I am then forced to pay for an inferior item that I don’t want, tells me volumes about the people who come up with these ideas…