The offering of single use plastic bags by retailers in Nanaimo was banned in July 2021. (Dreamstime)

By Alex Rawnsley

SINGLE USE PLASTICS

‘We are trying to change our culture:’ Nanaimo’s plastic bag ban poised to expand

Jul 1, 2022 | 9:26 AM

NANAIMO — The permanent exile within City limits of the plastic grocery bag is one year old.

A City of Nanaimo bylaw took effect on July 1, 2021 and effectively removed plastic grocery bags from local retail stores. Exceptions remained for smaller produce or bulk item bags, however checkouts couldn’t offer the larger carry bags at the final purchase point.

Taaj Daliran, city manager of sanitation and recycling, told NanaimoNewsNOW the change came with challenges for stores who had to switch out their bag offerings overnight.

“We had some stores that had some challenges about how they could obtain [cloth] bags or paper, so we created a list of available suppliers or manufacturers and we shared that with some of the stores that didn’t have access to a list.”

City staff spent the year monitoring the change over and ensuring retailers were abiding by the new restrictions.

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Daliran said for the most part, they’ve eliminated single use plastic bags in Nanaimo with substantially less coming to the landfill because they’re no longer available at purchase.

Tracking of specific volumes through the landfill in Cedar is difficult, as multiple waste streams converge at the site, but Daliran said it is notable.

A pending ban from the federal government is looking to target not only bags across the country, but takeout containers and plastic straws by the end of 2023.

Whatever changes which eventually come to fruition will be reviewed by the City in a bid to expand their own program to cover any gaps left by Ottawa.

“We believe that any single use item that can be replaced with multi-use, reusable items, we should do it. We are trying to change our culture by moving away from single use items when we can have reusable items, that’s our general philosophy.”

Nanaimo was the third municipality in B.C. to implement a plastic bag ban, with others following suit since.

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