Montreal to examine banning plastic grocery bags

The city of Montreal will begin an official consultation on banning single-use plastic bags in the retail sector.

City councillor Elsie Lefebvre has been selected to organize the consultation, which will examine environmental, social and economic impacts of an eventual ban. It will also look at what has happened in other cities that have banned plastic bags.

The consultation is expected to start in May 2015.

The idea of the ban was first floated in November 2014. From the beginning, the Canadian Plastics Industry Association has said that the proposed ban is a bad idea. “This news seems to have come from out of nowhere, without any forethought or discourse,” said Carol Hochu, president of the Canadian Plastics Industry Association, in a statement in November 2014. “A 2007 study from Recyc-Quebec indicated that plastic bags represent less than two per cent of all waste generated each year by Quebec households.”

On March 30, the CPIA went on the offensive, announcing immediate plans to form a Montreal Plastic Bag Ban Task Force. “[We] urgently need your participation to help us fight this battle that affects not only plastic bags in Montreal but potentially the Canadian plastics industry at large,” CPIA said in an email that went out to members.

The email asks anyone interested in being on the task force to email Shannon Laszlo, the CPIA’s project/administration coordinator, at slaszlo@plastics.ca by this Thursday April 2, 2015.

A similar task force was instrumental in defeating a proposed plastics bag ban in Toronto in 2012.