TORONTO – Toronto city council voted 24-20 on Wednesday to prohibit “single-use” plastic shopping bags by Jan. 1, 2013.
This happened moments after council passed a motion to scrap the five-cent retail bag tax on July 1, removing a pet peeve of Mayor Rob Ford.
The fee was imposed in June 2009 by former Toronto Mayor David Miller in an effort to reduce environmental degradation caused by plastic bags.
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Since the implementation of the bylaw, plastic bag usage has dropped by more than 50 per cent.
Currently, the millions of dollars in proceeds from the tax go into the pockets of retailers.
Toronto will join other major centres such as San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles, who have already implemented a ban on single-use plastic bags.
The tiny community of Leaf Rapids, Man., was the first community in Canada to ban the bags in April 2007.
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