I like to give credit where credit is due, and Justin Trudeau’s decision to ban single use plastics deserves credit. No doubt it will get plenty of criticism from the likes of Andrew Scheer who thinks we should instead try to deal with the problem somewhere else in the world, and avoid any possible job loss even in the face of turning our oceans into a plastic soup. No doubt the plastics lobby is powerful.
My wife and I have been carrying cloth bags for our shopping since the 1970s, as have many people in the Kootenays who care about the environmental effect of our existence, yet still, today, when I go to some stores, most people are loading up their goods in plastic bags.
Individuals can have some effect, but only government legislation will ever solve the problem. And during that nearly 50-year span, more and more of the goods that go in the plastic bags are in plastic containers that are stuffing all the earth’s creatures with micro-plastic.
If you want your mayonnaise in glass, well, you have to pay more, and I am happy to do so for the Earth and for my own health, but it does little good if most other people still buy the cheaper product in the plastic container. We dearly need this kind of government intervention. Putting jobs ahead of the health of our planet is no longer an option.
Rod Retzlaff
Glade