Partnership to promote recycling, reuse of plastic bags

In an effort to promote recycling, the Regional Municipality of Durham is partnering with the Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA) and three supermarket companies to launch a program to recycle and reuse plastic shopping bags.

The retailer-managed program, which officially kicked off Sept. 20, allows customers to return their unwanted plastic shopping bags to participating A&P, Loblaws and Sobeys outlets in Durham Region.

The program has two aims. The first is to encourage people to reuse the plastic shopping bags they already have. The second is to provide the public with easy-to-access recycling containers at their favourite supermarket.

“I equate this to the wise use of shopping bags; that’s basically our goal,” says Cathy Cirko, CPIA’s vice-president of environment and health.

As part of the program, participating retailers offer in-store containers where customers can put unwanted plastic shopping bags. Retailers then make sure the returned bags are processed in an environmentally-friendly manner.

As it stands, there is already a high rate of reusing plastic shopping bags, says Cirko, citing polls indicating that between 80 and 90 per cent of people reuse their plastic shopping bags.

Still, what often happens, says Cirko, is that people end up with a cupboard full of unwanted plastic shopping bags.

“In order for you to reduce that number of bags in your cupboard, we’re offering you options,” says Cirko. “When you go shopping, we’re saying, ‘Don’t take a bag if you don’t need one.’”

Durham Region’s commissioner of works Cliff Curtis says the municipality “fully supports this program.”

“I believe we can make a big difference in (reducing) the number of plastic grocery bags that are currently building up in our landfills,” said Curtis in a Sept. 20 press release.

“By encouraging residents to return the plastic bags for recycling or, better yet, not use them in the first place by opting for reusable shopping bags, we will have a big impact on keeping our environment cleaner and greener.”

Cirko points out that in the Atlantic provinces and Western Canada, in-store plastic bag recycling and reusing programs have been commonplace for years. Only recently has Central Canada jumped on board, she notes.