Plastic bag ban a relief for Island Waste Management

The head of the Island Waste Management Corporation (IWMC) is happythatlegislation to ban single-use plastic bags has passed third, and final reading.

"Any time you can reduce the amount of waste that's generated is a good thing," saidGerry Moore.

Moore said the corporation receives "a significant amount" of single-use plastic bags during its collections.

"Basically one tractor-trailer load a month ... leaves the province," he said.

'Millions of bags'

The ban which goes into effect in July 2019, with further legislation coming into place in 2020 will focuson single-use plastic bags,commonly referred to as checkout bags.

There will be several exceptions, including bags for produce, baked goods, meat, hardware and tires, but Moore said that the majority of plastic bags they process will be banned by the new act.

"It's millions of bags that will be affected," he said. "So the elimination or the reduction of plastic bags is viewed as a positive thing by Island Waste Management."

No overseas market

IWMC has been struggling to deal with the large amount of plastics it processes after China announced it would no longer accept foreign recyclableslast fall.

The corporation has stockpiled more than 100 tonnes of plastic since then. Moore said material they could no longer hold onto was usedto heat government buildings.

But without a market to sell the recyclables to, Moore said there's been a surplus of plastic in North America, leaving other jurisdictions to send them to landfills.

Moore saidhe's unsure of how much the legislation will reduce the amount of plastic the corporation processes, but hopes that in the mean time, Islanders try to avoid using single-use plastic bags.

"If you don't need to use them, don't."

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