During Monday night’s St. John’s city council meeting Deputy Mayor Sheilagh O’Leary put forward a motion calling on the city to lobby the provincial government to ban single-use plastic bags in the province.
“We survived without plastic bags for many years,” said O’Leary. “There are alternatives.”
O’Leary attended the Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador (MNL) conference over the weekend in Corner Brook. She says that banning plastic bags was once again one of the resolutions on the table.
Back in 2015, MNL passed a resolution for a ban on single-use plastic bags in the province.
O’Leary says the resolution has had tremendous support, but now it’s time for action.
She says cities and countries across the world are instituting this type of ban, and that Newfoundland and Labrador shouldn’t be last in line.
“We are a coastal and marine environment,” said O’Leary. “Not only does this destroy our marine environment, but it’s also affecting our tourism industry.”
O’Leary says there are no plastic bag producers here in the province, therefore no jobs would be lost in the process.
“These bags do not biodegrade,” she said. “They break down into smaller micro plastics … we need to start eliminating them.”
