City council balks at timeline to ban single-use plastics

The City of Orillia is asking the federal government to reconsider its timeline for implementing a ban on single-use plastics.

During its meeting Monday, which stretched out over several hours, council committee revisited a motion — which was postponed last month — to support, in principle, the feds’ proposed ban on certain single-use plastics.

The point of the postponement was to allow for feedback from the Couchiching Conservancy, Sustainable Orillia, the city’s environmental advisory committee (EAC) and local plastics manufacturers Barrie Plastics and Polyethics Industries.

In a report to council, EAC chair Michael Williams wrote, “The federal government recommendations do not go far enough and the timeline is not fast enough for reducing plastic production and banning all non-essential and single-use plastic.”

“We can wait for the federal government to regulate the low-hanging fruit — the relative few plastics that are easy to get out of the system,” he wrote. “We can sit back and wait to see what the province does as far as producer responsibility goes. Or we can rise to meet this challenge and act now, just like the small town of Fort Frances has done.”

Like the EAC, Coun. Tim Lauer had concerns about the timeline. The federal plan is to ban single-use plastics including straws, plastic cutlery and plastic bags by the end of 2021. It also includes a target of having at least 50 per cent recycled content in plastics products by 2030.

Council’s motion was amended to urge the government to reassess its timelines and “consider a more aggressive benchmarking schedule.”

Coun. Ralph Cipolla wanted the motion to go further to say, “if the federal government doesn’t react by late October, early December, that we find a way to ban single-use plastics in Orillia.”

That didn’t happen, but the motion was amended to say council might revisit the issue if it deems the implementation of the ban “insufficient.”

If an election is called prior to the ban being put in place, and if the Liberals are defeated, “there are going to be further delays and further excuses that we can’t do this,” Cipolla said.

“I would really like us, as a municipality, to act.”

Couchiching Conservancy executive director Mark Bisset agreed.

In his letter to council, he noted it’s becoming more common for autopsies to reveal “balls of tangled plastic in the stomachs of shore birds who are so compromised by the garbage they consume that they starve to death.”

“In these circumstances, it seems a moral imperative for the city to show leadership on this issue.”

He urged the city to consider a municipal ban on single-use plastics “in the event that the federal and provincial governments ultimately fail to provide effective leadership on the issue.”

“In the interim,” he wrote, “the city should embrace every opportunity to support local businesses, organizations and citizens providing leadership on this front with every tool at its disposal.”

Greg Preston, the city’s manager of environmental services, was asked if he was confident the ban would be in place this year.

“Everything I’ve seen from the federal government indicates that the plan is to enact something later this year,” he said.

There was plenty of talk about the city taking its own actions on plastics.

Cipolla was concerned plastic bags might not be banned until 2024 or 2025.

“We really need to act with the single-use plastic bags sooner rather than later,” he said.

Coun. David Campbell noted the motion to support the plan in principle “doesn’t mean that, as a council and as a city, we’re just leaving it up to the federal government.”

“We’re going to be watching this,” he said, adding the city can implement measures at the local level if it isn’t satisfied with the federal plan or timeline.

Another addition to the original motion calls on the feds to support provinces and territories “in making extended producer responsibility policies consistent, comprehensive and transparent, and by insisting that oversight standards ensure that landfill, incineration or export are not default options for producers.”

The motion approved by council committee will be up for ratification at the next council meeting.