Toronto is as liberal a city as there is. So if change doesn’t come easy there, that same change would face a Berlin Wall of opposition in Western New York, home of “whether it’s broken or not, don’t fix it.”
But the transition taking place up north could have big implications there and, if we ever wised up on environmental issues, here.
City officials enacted a law in Toronto that require shoppers as of June to pay at least 5 cents for each plastic bag they took from the store. The idea is to create less nonbiodegradable waste.
A bag abhorrer, I constantly have to tell checkout clerks that I don’t want a bag. I always get the same reaction: an incredulous look, as though I’d just emitted some foul odor, followed by a high-pitched “Are you SURE?!”
Yes. And that shows just how ingrained the idea is of wasting a bag to carry a single item (which we carry around the store without help) from the checkout to the car and then to the kitchen counter.
The Hamilton (Ontario) Spectator reported in late June that many Toronto shoppers were annoyed with the regulation, despite its benefits. One woman defiantly left her reusable cloth bag in the car to obtain plastic bags inside.
But, while change was slow, early results showed that the pain was worth it. Canadian grocer Loblaw reported that 75 percent fewer plastic bags were used from April (when the chain started its own reduction program) to late June. Competitor Metro, meanwhile, said that reusable bag sales increased fivefold in June.
Sure, those plastic bags have alternate uses (I use them in a garbage can and to carry other items about). But do we need so many?
And while a nickel is not much, it still amounts to a tax. Paying more for what used to be free is a legitimate gripe.
But reducing garbage (and, perhaps, that depressingly voluminous mound along I-190 in Niagara Falls) is worth a bit of pain.
The Toronto law takes additional steps. The sale of bottled water at city events is banned, and food vendors will have to develop reusable take-out food containers by 2010.
In time, people will get used to it. Bringing your own container or — gasp! — carrying items in your hand will become habitual, as did horseless carriages, television and texting.
So it would be here, as well, if we ever took such a step. Several Western New York stores have placed plastic bag recycling bins at their entrances, but in a region in which people still grumble about sorting cans and cardboard for curbside recycling, these bins don’t figure to fill up that often, so more action is needed.
While plastic bags and bottles might not account for much of the garbage we create, we can make a difference by using fewer.
But — and that’s a big but — we have to be willing to change. As anyone who’s tried to birth new ideas in this area has learned, changing some people’s thinking here is pretty much like trying to run through a wall.
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