Billions of plastic bags are used by Canadians every year and it’s no surprise most of them end up as litter.
On Monday, Regina city council passed a motion asking city administration to prepare a report on the environmental impact of single-use plastics such as grocery bags, take-out containers and straws.
According to Waste Reduction Week in Canada, Canadians throw away approximately 57 million single-use plastic straws every day.
“There’s a huge problem with plastics worldwide, there’s a problem with plastics locally in our landfill and there is no need for it, and there may be an appetite in certain circumstances to say let’s regulate or prevent that from happening,” Mayor Michael Fougere said.
The report would set out options to limit the use of single-use plastics and will also look at what measures other jurisdictions have taken.
“I think this is an important statement by our community that we really want to help our environment and get plastics out of our chain for garbage and the landfill, so we are looking for a report that is going to give us some guidelines as a way in which to do that,” Fougere said.
The report is expected to come back to council at the beginning of 2020.