Quispamsis Moves Forward With Banning Plastic Checkout Bags

Quispamsis has become one of the first municipalities in Greater Saint John to pass a bylaw banning plastic checkout bags.

But Tuesday night’s decision did not come without concern from several councillors, including one who voted against the ban.

The bylaw was proposed by the Fundy Regional Service Commission (FRSC) as part of a regional effort to help reduce plastic bags in the environment.

Retail stores will still be able to provide paper bags as an alternative or reusable bags which are durable for at least 100 uses.

“Plastic bags in the Fundy region are one of the most challenging items that we have to work with in the waste stream and in the environment,” said Brenda MacCallum, public relations and program development officer with FRSC.

“In the Fundy region, it’s estimated that there are 35 million plastic bags a year, so your action in moving this bylaw forward can put a stop to 35 million plastic bags entering into our landfill and into our environment. It’s a very powerful bylaw.”

The commission had asked Fundy region municipalities to adopt a plastic bag reduction bylaw by this month, but the date was pushed back to June 30 due to COVID-19.

MacCallum said the proposed bylaw was tweaked slightly to no longer require retailers to charge customers for paper bags after concerns were raised about challenges at drive-thrus.

Because customers typically pay for their drive-thru order before receiving it, the employee would not know how many bags would be needed, meaning the customer may be charged the correct amount.

A survey conducted by the commission and the Saint John Region Chamber of Commerce late last year found 75 per cent of businesses in the area support the banning of plastic bags.

Eighty-three per cent said a potential ban would have little to no impact on their operations, while 10 per cent indicated a ban would have a significant impact on their operation beyond six months of being implemented.

But not all councillors in Quispamsis are fully onboard with the plan. Coun. Sean Luck, who voted against the ban, raised a number of concerns during Tuesday’s meeting, including what would happen with existing stockpiles of bags at local retailers.

“I know a lot of stores, including myself when I had one, you would buy in some cases a year or two supply. So what happens to those stores with inventory?” said Luck.

MacCallum said under the bylaw, retailers can still use plastic bags for certain things, such as packaging loose bulk items and transporting live fish.

Luck and fellow councillor Kirk Miller also raised concerns about the fact some reusable bags are not recyclable.

“We’re exerting control over plastic bags, I don’t see any reason why we can’t exert control over what kind of reusable, whether they’re cloth, or if they are reusable plastic that they’re a recyclable plastic,” said Miller.

But MacCallum said restricting which types of reusable bags are allowed would be difficult to do on a municipal level. She added that no other plastic checkout bag bylaw she has seen places those types of restrictions.

When asked about why a plastic checkout bag ban is not being instituted at a provincial level, MacCallum said the commission has requested a letter be sent to the province to ask why.

“The indication coming forward from the province was that it basically was not a priority for them,” said MacCallum.

“The reason why we’re moving forward with it is the challenges we had at the commission level with the recycling of plastic bags. Since we stopped recycling them, we want to put a stop to them completely.”

Other municipalities in the Saint John region are in the process of implementing the commission’s proposed plastic bag bylaw with the intention to have them all take effect on June 30.