By Dale Boyd
Osoyoos Times
With 300 million tonnes of plastic waste produced worldwide every year, Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen directors stepped up to defend against what they framed as the demonization of plastic ahead of provincial and federal single-use plastics reviews.
Director of Area H (rural Princeton), Bob Coyne, shared a personal story at the Sept. 5 meeting relating to the characterization of plastics as pollution impacting his family. The tale recounted a building with a plastic vapour barrier being built on his property.
“Now, my granddaughter, who is six years old, comes out there as we’re putting up the vapour barrier and she’s pretty much scared of going into the building because all of that plastic is going to end up in the ocean and going to kill fish,” Coyne said. “Because of the marketing that has been going on and that the kids in school are learning about plastic in the oceans. We need to be a little bit more careful as what goes out as training for these little kids that not all plastic is going to kill the world.”
Coyne aired his worries of teaching children about pollution after the board learned the provincial and federal single-use plastics consultations would take the task out of the RDOS’ hands.
“The press likes to hype it up about all of the plastic that’s inside the whales and all the rest of it. It’s not all plastic that ends up in whales,” said Coyne, who who is the uncle of Jamie Coyne, operator of the Princeton landfill.
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Dir. George Bush, Electoral Area B (Cawston), self identifying as a “redneck” put forward a solution to plastic pollution.
“I’d like to add to that too. As somebody said, us rednecks, we don’t pollute the world because our plastic bags are still under the kitchen sink,” he said to a round of laughs from the RDOS board.
Meanwhile, according to the federal government, less than 10 per cent of plastic used in Canada gets recycled and Canadians throw away around $11 billion worth of plastic material. According to National Geographic about 8 million tons of plastic waste enters the ocean from coastal nations every year.
The board, and people living in the region, were encouraged to participate in the provincial survey online at cleanbc.gov.bc.ca/plastics.
The survey closes and the end of the month and the RDOS’ public works department is submitting its own analysis, as well as the resolution the board passed indicating a full provincial program is necessary instead of each municipality forming their own rules.
“When I go to a grocery store, I like to put my vegetables in a nice, clean plastic bag. What would be the alternative to that?” Bush wondered.
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Cameron Baughen, RDOS solid waste management coordinator, noted in the City of Victoria, prior to their plastics ban being quashed by the courts, enforced the elimination of check-out grocery bags, with clear single-use bags in the vegetable aisle still remaining.
“Another community may have banned that. So, that’s the problem that I’m seeing as a solid waste professional, that we’re seeing a balkanization of these different rules and regulations,” Baughen said.
Big picture regulations from the federal government can take on more systemic plastic waste problems, Baughen said.
“If we had a provincial mandate, or a federal mandate, which would be even better, we could actually do a lot more. So that at a federal level, especially, they can look at packaging much differently,” Baughen said.
Osoyoos Mayor Sue McKortoff had a suggestion for Bush’s concern over clear vegetable bags.
“I wash out my plastic bags and I keep them and take them to the store with me and reuse them. The other thing is, people tend to put everything in plastic bags, and some things don’t need to be in plastic bags,” McKortoff said. “Like bananas, like any kind of fruit or vegetable that has the skin on that you’re going to peel. I think we have to look at ways to reduce and reuse, and not just recycle.”
