Sioux Lookout Public Invitation: A Special Council Meeting will be held Thursday, September 2, 2010 from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m., in the council Chambers, Municipal Office, 25 Fifth Avenue to provide further opportunity to the public to provide comments to Council on the proposed Plastic Bag Ban By-Law No.20-10.  All aspects of the bylaw will be open for discussion, including what is proposed to be banned.

Curious about the bylaw? Click to read: By-Law No. 20-10 Plastic Bags Ban

Dryden and the surrounding area retailers that pledged to participate in Michelle’s Earth Day Challenge did NOT hand out new single use plastic shopping bags on Earth Day.  The year 2008 marked the beginning of this challenge which yielded a total 27 participating retailers.  This first-year success was followed by an even more successful participation in the year 2009 with a total 40 participating retailers.  The year 2010 was the final year of this challenge (since I am leaving for University this fall) and 43 retailers participated in this challenge! I estimate that participation in the final year is approximately 90 percent or more of our retail store community that distributes plastic bags on a daily basis.

How do I know that these challenges were successful?  Retail store feedback.  For the purpose of this article, I will share the most recent challenge feedback.  I submitted a form to each of the 43 managers of participating retail stores.  Before moving on, please note that I received a response from only 29 retail store participants and these responses represent the extent of my data.  It is, however, my personal belief that any retail store participants who were disappointed by the challenge would have taken my response form as an opportunity to give me their negative feedback and possible opposition to the challenge and/or developing plastic bag ban bylaw.  Therefore, I feel confident saying that any other feedback would likely be just as positive as the data I received.

The following are the questions and results for the feedback form;

1. “Overall, how would you rate customer response?” Seventy two percent of retailers chose Very Positive. Twenty-eight percent chose Positive. Zero percent for Neutral, Negative and Very Negative.

2. “Did specific customers give you positive feedback?” Eighty-nine percent of retailers chose Yes. Eleven percent chose No.

3. “Did specific customers give you negative feedback?” Ninety-three percent of retailers chose No. Seven percent chose Yes.

4. “Would you be in favour of a ban on single use plastic shopping bags in the City of Dryden if you were given six months notice?” Sixty-four percent of retailers chose Yes. Thirty-six percent chose Maybe. Zero percent chose No.  In other words, no retailer who voluntarily banned plastic bags for one day is in outright opposition to the bylaw.

5. Optional – Please make general comments here:
(responses are in no particular order = total 11 responses)

“I am all for educating the public on banning plastic.”
“[This event should be] done once a month.”
“Will help at Dryden Store whenever needed again.”
“Very good for business and the community!”
“It went very well.”
“Please keep this up!”
“We were happy to support this – we even refused to sell fish and we gave out reusable bags to forgetful customers.  Best of luck.”
“Keep up the great work!”
“Stores need to begin giving boxes or paper bags to consumers.”
“I think this is very good in raising awareness and keeping our earth green and pollution free.”
“Very good day over all!”

Sioux Lookout is in the process of passing a bylaw that I have been wishing be implemented in Dryden.  This bylaw will prohibit the sale or free distribution of plastic shopping bags within their municipality.  The upcoming third and final reading of the bylaw will determine whether Sioux Lookout will be the first community in Ontario to take such an important step to ensuring waste reduction.

The response that I have received from OUR community is that people WANT change.  Being in favour of the bylaw or even a successful event similar to a bylaw proves that people need a push to change their habits.  What happens when you tell people that they have to bring their own bag to the check out counter Every Day?  This isn’t a tricky question; people simply bring their own bag.

Media Release - July 2, 2010

Dryden Rotary to welcome zero waste spokespersons Jen Rustemeyer and Grant Baldwin to the City and host screening of their movie “The Clean Bin Project.”

For a year, they bought nothing and threw away zilch.  Now BC Filmmakers are cycling Canada & “Talking Trash” and inspiring Zero Waste with their Documentary Film.

What started as a personal challenge – a household competition to see who could produce the least amount of garbage – has now become a comedic feature documentary that will be coming to Dryden for a single showing on Wednesday, July 21 at 7:00 p.m. at The Centre, 100 Casimir Ave.

Filmmakers Grant Baldwin and Jenny Rustemeyer are on the road on bicycles showing their film The Clean Bin Project in communities across Canada with the goal of getting others to give “zero waste” a go.

The Clean Bin Project is a feature documentary film about a regular couple and their quest to answer the question “is it possible to live completely waste free?” Partners Jen and Grant go head to head in a competition to see who can swear off consumerism and produce the least landfill garbage in an entire year.  Their light-hearted competition to reduce, reuse and recycle their way to the smallest garbage bin is set against a darker examination of the large-scale environmental impacts of our, “throw-way society.”

“We had watched a lot of environmental films that were really informative, but we always felt overwhelmed and deflated at the end of them,” explains Grant, who directed and edited the film, “we wanted to make a movie that showed how choosing to do just one thing, like reducing your trash, can be not only manageable, but really empowering and fun.”

The pair has already been garnering accolades for their film, winning a 2010 MOBI award from the Recycling council of BC.  “We just started as a personal challenge, but it turns out that people are really intrigued by how we managed to produce so little garbage,” says Jen, “So we made a film about it.”

The Rotary Club of Dryden in support of environmental awareness is pleased to host the screening of this film.

Admission will be by donation at the door with proceeds towards the filmmakers cycling tour of Canada.

Here is an important snippet of information from that article:

“Right now we’re [also] pouring millions of litres of oil into the ocean, in the Gulf of Mexico. This illustrates how everything is interconnected – even our problems. The disaster in the gulf is a direct consequence of our overconsumption and reliance on diminishing fossil fuels for energy. And that, in turn, is creating problems beyond pollution in the ocean. Our use of fossil fuels is also causing air pollution and is contributing to the greatest threat facing humanity, climate change.

What this should teach us is that all of us can and must do our part to turn it around. We need to drive less, consume less, use fewer plastic products, throw away less, recycle and compost more, and make sure the products we use are as environmentally sustainable as possible. These individual actions can make a powerful difference, especially because, as more people do their part, this becomes the socially “normal” way to live.”

A boat sailed through crude oil that had leaked from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico.

In this week’s issue of Sioux Lookout’s local newspaper, the Sioux Bulletin, there is an article with regard to the bylaw from the perspective of students at Sioux Mountain Public School.  See page 2.

Also, in the letters to the editor section see my letter in response to previous letters “Useless Bylaw and Bag Ban Ridiculous.”

THE BAD NEWS… facing the facts:

• Atlantic Plastic Garbage Patch Found
  “Our job now is to let people know that plastic ocean pollution is a global problem — it unfortunately is not confined to a single patch,” Cummins said.
  “Humanity’s plastic footprint is probably more dangerous than its carbon footprint,” he said.
  (Article posted on Friday April 16, 2010)
  .

THE GOOD NEWS:

• First Community in Ontario to ban plastic shopping bags? Sioux Lookout Success: they are implementing a bylaw to ban single use plastic shopping bags and they are at the point where they are requesting public input.
  (Posted on Friday, April 23, 2010)
• Nova Scotia becomes First Province to Ban Bottled Water
  (Posted on April 26, 2010)

“Green is the prime colour of the world, and that from which it’s loveliness arises.”

~ Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Spanish Dramatist and Poet

I would like to extend many thanks to the community of Sioux Lookout for setting an incredibly positive example and for being a community leading in environmental sustainability initiatives.

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BYLAW NO. 20-10 BEING A BYLAW TO PROHIBIT THE SALE OR FREE DISTRIBUTION OF PLASTIC BAGS WITHIN THE MUNICIPALITY OF SIOUX LOOKOUT

Council authorized the first reading of Bylaw No. 20-10 to Prohibit the Sale or free distribution of Plastic Bags within the Municipality of Sioux Lookout. Council directs staff to undertake public consultation on the proposed Bylaw.

Dewing shared, “First reading is basically council’s intent or demonstration of intent to pass the bylaw. It’s going to public consultation. It will be out there. It will be on the web site. We’ll put advertisements out and now the public can read it and the business community and make formal comments as to whether or not the final and formal passing of the bylaw would affect them adversely, whether they want some changes.”

If the bylaw passes its third and final reading, Sioux Lookout would become the first community in Ontario to ban the sale or free distribution of single use plastic shopping bags at the check out.

Mayor Kathy Poling says, “I personally feel that it is a step in the right direction and I eagerly await input from the community.”

The bylaw would not ban the bags people put fruits and vegetables in, garbage bags, the little bags used to clean up after pets or other plastic bags.

Saltel said both the business community and residents who were surveyed on the issue have been in favour of banning the bag.

To read the full article please view pages 17 and 18 HERE.

Earth Day is tomorrow, please remember to “bring your own bag” on Earth Day and every day.