These towns are banding together to ban bags

A trio of towns that boast some of the best scenery in the province can now also boast about their co-operative success, as the communities have come together in the latest of a series of regional initiatives to ban plastic bags.

Trout River, Woody Point and Glenburnie-Birchy Head-Shoal Brook, which individuallygovern the south side of Gros Morne, collectively instituted the ban earlier this year,after discussing what they could do to foster environmental initiatives in their fjord-huggedpart of the world.

"We are in the middle of a national park, and we have so many tourists come through here, that even though we're a small communitythe actual impact to the environment with plastic bags is huge," said Tanya Osmond, Woody Point's town manager, estimating between 25,000 to 40,000 people troop through the areaeach year.

"It was a no-brainer," said Myrna Goosney, the town manager and clerk for G.B.S.

To help move the initiative along, the townscollaborated tocreatereusable bags that were then handed out to every household in the region this summer.

"We were thinking, 'OK, we have a lot of seniors used to a certain way of doing things, so how can we make it easier for them?'" said Osmond.

"We see everybody using them. I'm super-impressed."

The ban is by all accounts a loose one. There are no penalties nor enforcement, and some stores haven't made the switch. But those who have say it's been a painless process.

"We have gone to paper bags, which people have really been overwhelmed about," said Jackie Collett, manager of Clover Farm Market in Woody Point.

"They're really happy about it."

Teamwork

The three town managers onGros Morne's south side are happy about it too, seeing it as a step to get the population weaned off plastic bags, which the federal governmentannouncedin Junewill be banned in Canadaas early as 2021.

• Ottawa announces plans to ban single-use plastics starting in 2021 at the earliest

But the townsare also taking their collective win in stride, asthe latest example of years of teamwork.

The communities formed the Gros Morne South joint council in 2014, and have met four times a yearever since.

"We all just kind of looked at each other and said, 'Why not help each other? Why not sort of form a bit more of a region? We don't have to wait for the province to tell us to do it,'" said Goosney.

Since then, sharing has become second nature. Woody Point and G.B.S. split a fire department, with a memorandum in place to help out the geographically separateTrout River if need be, as happened during a house fire in 2018. All three communities share waste management duties, age-friendly initiatives and applying for grants.

"We share those topics at the table and come to a consensus that works for everybody. It works well," said Goosney.

Regionalization has been a buzzword among the 277 municipalities of Newfoundland and Labrador for years.Many towns those in Gros Mornesouth included are grappling with aging and declining populations, as well as a dearth of people interested in participating in municipal politics.

• N.L. think tank recommends regional approach for towns

• Declining population shows need for regional governments, says MNL president

There are about a half-dozen joint councils in the province, according to Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador, although the councils vary widely on how many duties they share.

In Gros Morne, it seems like there's more brought up at the joint council table than not, as Osmond pointed out that when it comes to grants, the towns can access more funding together than alone.

"We share our services, we share our ideas and our minds, and that's a big part of it," she said.

Plus, "it just seems like things get done quicker," said Lorraine Barnes-Gushue, Trout River town clerk and manager.

Joining forces in the future?

Driving along the area's only highway, it's hard to tell where the towns that cling to the southern shores of Bonne Bay begin and end. With each passing community marker, it becomes easierto contemplate the extreme end of the regionalizationspectrum: amalgamation.

"Amalgamation is a big issue," said Osmond.

While all three town managers testify the area is tightly knit, geographically Trout River poses a challenge. It sits at the terminus of Route 431, 18 kilometres away from Woody Point, a highway that often becomes impassable between the two in winter.

And so, most of the amalgamation talks have involved Woody Point and G.B.S. itself, already an amalgamated mouthful, with Goosneysaying it's the longest municipality name in the province although no such chatter has reached a level of serious consideration.

"Down the road, it might be a topic that comes to the table as a really serious issue," said Goosney, adding there are people both for and against it in her community.

Either side's arguments on amalgamation could dwindle in the future, as the demographics among all three towns continue to decline. Each of the Gros Morne communities number in the low hundreds, a number that does swell with summertime residents.

As that spectre lingers on the horizon like the area's glowing sunsets, the three town managers continue to push ahead with their day-to-day balance of daily tasks and progressive projects.

Woody Point has started offering compost pickup for its commercial businesses a move that in its first monthOsmond says has drastically cut the waste its paying to send to landfill.

It's another success the other two towns are paying attention to, and might just come up at the table at the next round of joint council talks.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador