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Do you remember the scene in the classic film The Graduate when a middle-aged gentleman corners Dustin Hoffman’s character at a party and tells him there's "a great future in plastics"
In 1967, the year The Graduate came out, the world was creating 23 million tonnes of plastic a year. By 2015, it was 381 million tonnes.
Nowadays, the chief use of plastic is in packaging, and only an estimated nine per cent of all plastic is recycled. A lot is accumulating in the oceans; when it's not gathering in large garbage patches, it's breaking into almost imperceptible pieces.
COVID-19 precautions, we notice, have led to increased use of plastic bags supplied by grocery stores. But some stores (e.g. Zehrs) allow re-usable bags as long as you pack the groceries yourself.
Shouldn’t we go back to avoiding the use of plastic bags? They remain one of the most pernicious sources of plastic pollution in Orillia, across Canada, and across the Earth.
Several jurisdictions around the world have banned disposable plastic shopping bags. The town of Leaf Rapids, Manitoba banned plastic bags in 2007.
Several American cities have, as well. The states of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, New York, Oregon and Vermont have done so, as have states in Australia and India. And several countries have totally banned disposable plastic bags: Italy, China, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Kenya, the Congo and South Africa.
If other jurisdictions can take this action, surely we here in Orillia, in Canada, can do the same. Isn’t it time we reduced plastic packaging in Orillia or banned it altogether?
While the government of Canada has announced that all single-use plastics will be banned by the end of 2021, surely we can start now as a personal step.
Sustainable Orillia’s Youth Council will soon be launching its “Boomerang Bags” campaign – re-usable shopping bags made from recycled fabric by students. Watch for their instructional video on making your own, or look for them for use-and-return at shopping outlets near you.
