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North Shore residents want plastic shopping bags banned: poll

Almost 60 per cent say we should ditch single-use shopping bags
North Shore News
Park royal shopping bags
Shoppers leave West Vancouver's Park Royal with plastic shopping bags. A Majority of North Shore News readers polled say they'd like to see plastic bags banned.Kevin Hill / North Shore News files

It's been four months since the City of Vancouver banned plastic shopping bags, and a majority of North Shore residents say they'd like to follow suit.

North Shore News polled 1,824 readers and asked the question: Should the North Shore's governments ban plastic shopping bags like Vancouver?

The poll ran from March 9 to 29. Of the 1,824 votes, we can determine that 729 are from within the community. The full results are as follows:

Yes, they are a waste of resources and we can adapt to life without them. 59.12  local, 56.03  total    
No, it would be a large hassle for minimal environmental benefit. 22.22% local, 25.99%  total    
Maybe, but there are other things I'd rather ban first. 18.66% local, 17.98% total    
  Local   Total

Since Jan. 1, Vancouver stores have only been able to offer paper bags, or reusable bags for purchase. A ban on plastic bags in the City of Richmond came into effect this month and Port Moody will ban single-use plastics like bags, stir sticks and foam packaging as of April 22.

Results are based on an online study of adult North Shore News readers that are located in North Vancouver and West Vancouver. The margin of error - which measures sample variability - is +/- 2.28%, 19 times out of 20.

North Shore News uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.