By Justine Kelsie

Grande Prairie resident looking for city to ban single-use plastic bags

Apr 25, 2018 | 10:25 AM

A local woman would like to see Grande Prairie get rid of single-use plastic bags.

Maurissa Hietland spoke at a City Council meeting Monday night about the amount of shopping bags caught in trees and fences around the Swan City. In order to get rid of the problem, she is hoping the city can create a bylaw.

“The city allocated it to a standing committee and hopefully the committee will move towards creating a single-use bag ban. It is certainly not a new idea and I think it would work well in our community,” said Hietland.

At the meeting, she referenced the Municipality of Wood Buffalo’s bag ban bylaw that was put into effect in 2010. The bylaw, according to their Bring-your-own-bag brochure, says it isn’t meant to ban all products, but rather to encourage the use of containers that can be used multiple times. It also bans the use of paper bags. Hietland wouldn’t want to put that into the rules here, but she would like the city to use it as a template. She thinks the community would be pretty responsive to the proposed change. 

“One thing I like to do is ask the checkout cashiers. They are always all for it because people are complaining that they are being charged for bags. The idea of charging for bags is to sway people away from using them under the environmental pretense.”

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On top of local plastics found caught in trees, she spoke on the giant floating plastic islands in the ocean. She says although the prairies aren’t near the ocean, she feels like it is everyone’s problem. 

The city will bring the suggestion to a future committee meeting.