The City of Vancouver is one step closer to banning plastic shopping bags.
City councillors passed a motion Tuesday asking city staff to come up with a feasible bag ban plan as early as next year. An implementation process is expected to be presented to council in early 2009.
The city must now ask the B.C. provincial government to consider passing a provincial-wide ban or amend the City of Vancouver Charter so they can enact their own ban.
Coun. Tim Stevenson, who led the motion, says he fully supports a complete ban. He says the action is necessary because of the environmental damage the bags cause to the environment.
Plastic bags account for an estimated 10,000 of the 1.6 million tonnes of garbage that end up in landfills annually in the Lower Mainland area alone.
A whopping 1.5 billion plastic bags are distributed each year in B.C.
Last month, four of Canada's leading retail associations have voluntarily agreed to reduce the number of plastic bags distributed in British Columbia by 50 per cent by 2013.
They are encouraging consumers to use reusable cloth bags.
Customers of Capers and Wholefoods in the Lower Mainland are already well versed in reusable bag use. The retailer banned plastic bags seven months ago.
