By Megan Ion
Paper or plastic? This question may become obsolete in Ottawa stores if Somerset Ward Councillor Diane Holmes gets her way.
Holmes recently suggested that the city ban the use of plastic grocery bags within three years. She is concerned about the environmental damage caused by the bags, which she says saturate landfills and litter the city.
“They’re everywhere,” says Holmes. “They’re on the roadways, in our waterways, decorating our trees, and polluting the environment.”
Each year, the City of Ottawa alone collects more than 36 million plastic bags which are then sent to China to be recycled at a cost to the city of $1.2 million.
Holmes hopes her proposal could start with a voluntary ban.
“More education with the problem of plastic bags is needed,” she says.
One local businessman says his store is ready to be part of a plastic bag-free Ottawa. Dan Gamble, co-owner of the Turning Point, a used music and video store on Cooper Street, says Ottawa should emulate what most European countries have already done by cutting down on the use of plastic bags.
“I don’t like the idea of plastic bags because they’re around forever,” says Gamble. “I think people would get used to not having them after the rough honeymoon period.”
Most businesses agreed that customers expect to be offered something to get their purchases from the store to their home.
“Books are totally perishable items…and you have to protect what you sell,” says Pat Caven, manager of Perfect Books on Elgin Street. “But I leave taking the bag up to the customers.”
Choice is something customers like to have, says Arthur Konviser, senior vice-president of corporate affairs for Shoppers Drug Mart.
“When you put a dozen pop [cans] into a paper bag, it will break,” says Konviser. “Customers want the option of a plastic bag.”
Many Centretown businesses don’t force bags on their customers. Instead, they offer the bag and let the customer decide whether or not he or she would like to have one.
“We accommodate people,” says Sandra Winacott, manager of Rocs Cards and Gifts on Elgin Street. “If we didn’t have them at all, I think people would be upset.”
It costs Winacott “a couple grand a year” to purchase bags and gift boxes for her store and she says although not purchasing bags might save her store money, her customers would probably not be very happy.
Many storeowners, like Peter Boushey, manager of Boushey’s Fruit Market on Elgin Street, believe Holmes’ proposed bylaw, though a good idea, will be met with resistance from both customers and businesses alike.
“I don’t think customers would like it,” says Boushey, whose store hands out close to 200,000 grocery bags each year.
It is too soon to tell how consumers and businesses would react if faced with an immediate ban. In fact, the public should be questioning the motives and environmental conscience of the companies who manufacture the plastic bags, says Beatrice Olivastri of Friends of the Earth, an environmental group.
“It is the responsibility of these companies who produce the bags to become involved and make sure their product is environmentally safe,” she says. “The onus needs to be put on the producers to take responsibility rather than making consumers the victims.”