There’s no future in plastics.
That seemed to be the consensus at District of North Vancouver municipal hall Monday night as council voted 5-0 to have staff investigate a policy regulating single-use items like plastic bags and straws. Staff would be tasked with discussing the issue with local businesses and stakeholder groups before reporting back to council within 90 days.
The motion, put forward by Coun. Megan Curren, elicited strong support from children throughout the district, as more than 600 elementary students wrote letters to council and several more implored council to ban plastics at Monday’s meeting.
“Imagine a world with no waste – it can only happen if you get rid of single-use plastic,” Sidney Kleinschmidt told council.
Kleinschmidt and fellow Brockton School student Madeline Lighty each emphasized the ruinous ecological effect of single-use plastics.
“A lot of the plastic gets dumped into the ocean and turtles eat them mistaking them for food,” Lighty noted.
“I think you should just ban single-use plastics for forever starting now,” agreed Sherwood Park Elementary student Keaton Schisler. “I see too much plastic litter on my playground, at the parks, and in garbage cans when it needs to be recycled. But recycling is not the answer . . . reduction is the answer. No one needs a plastic bag. No one needs a plastic straw.”
The students were supported by Oceanwise microplastics researcher Rhiannon Moore, who told council that plastic items used for 10 minutes “exist on the Earth for eternity.”
“Plastics never actually biodegrade, they just turn into fragments we can no longer see,” Moore said. “Time is not on our side.”
The local and global problem is “largely a product of our addiction to convenience,” Moore said, urging council to take a first step toward a ban.
Both Curren and Coun. Jordan Back noted that municipal efforts to ban the bag date back to at least the 1980s.
“I would love for us to be the council that actually makes that a reality,” Back said.
Before council can take action, the district will need to do a lot of outreach in the business community “and look at the implications that this would have,” Back added.
Enforcing a single-use plastics ban would come with a cost for the municipality, Curren acknowledged. However, there is also a financial and environmental cost that comes with plastic washing up in sewers, storms drains and beaches, she contended.
“If you see a piece of garbage on the street, it’s probably going to make its way into our storm drain,” she said, noting anecdotes of plastic bags in the sewage system.
The goal should be to use less of everything, Curren said. “It’s not about replacing one thing with something else,” she told her colleagues. “We really need to just rethink what convenience means.”
Coun. Betty Forbes lauded the young residents who spoke at the meeting. “I think a lot of older people, we don’t necessarily see the kind of damage that this does to the environment,” Forbes said.
“It’s a little bit humbling” to see the district’s youth leading the effort to ban single-use plastics, Coun. Jim Hanson said, adding that it’s those same young people who will be left “in the world we create.”
Curren agreed.
“We have some amazing, passionate leaders in our community – most of them are in elementary school,” she said. “I hope they can teach the people who are not in elementary school.”
The motion was also supported by Krystal Brennan of Wildcoast Ecological Society. Brennan, who was speaking to council about rehabilitation work in Mackay Creek following a February oil spill, emphasized the need to divert plastic from waterways.
Mayor Mike Little and Coun. Lisa Muri attended the earlier portion of the meeting via telephone but were not present during the vote on regulating plastic.
