Does banning plastic bags help or hurt?

They blow around streets and parks like synthetic tumbleweeds &ndash; especially in the Third World &ndash; and can choke sea mammals and turtles. A movement is gaining momentum globally to ban the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags, which are rarely recycled.

They blow around streets and parks like synthetic tumbleweeds – especially in the Third World – and can choke sea mammals and turtles. A movement is gaining momentum globally to ban the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags, which are rarely recycled.

At least 500 billion bags are used worldwide every year, according to advocacy website Torontonians use up to 800 million annually.

On April 2, Leaf Rapids, Man., became the first Canadian community to ban plastic bags, after San Francisco began phasing them out at supermarkets and pharmacies. Portland, Ore., is considering it. Rossland, B.C., was heading that way, but last month its council decided simply to "discourage" their use.

These places join a growing number of countries worldwide that have issued bans: Bangladesh, because they block drains during floods; Zanzibar, Rwanda and South Africa, due to severe litter. In Ireland, a levy (set to increase) has cut usage by more than 90 per cent.

Toronto, where plastic bag recycling won't be available until 2008, is also looking at a levy of 25 cents a bag.

Some companies aren't waiting. Swedish furniture giant Ikea, for instance, began charging for plastic bags in the United Kingdom last year and reduced consumption by 95 per cent. The program has just been adopted by its U.S. stores, while a spokesperson says Ikea Canada is still "researching" the issue.

Many retailers, especially in Europe, have begun switching to compostable bags made from corn or other starches, which degrade in a matter of weeks rather than the estimated 1,000 years for traditional polyethylene bags.

The British grocery chain Sainsbury's is rolling out compostable packaging on store-brand products. In Canada, Mountain Equipment Co-op has been using the starch-based bags, which have the texture of rolled-out cotton candy, since last year.

The Canadian Plastics Industry Association is running to keep up with the onslaught. It has launched defensive websites – like, which makes statements like, "It is hard to think of a world without them." And after San Francisco's ban, Cathy Cirko, the association's vice-president of environment and health, wrote letters to newspapers saying the move was a snub of recycling efforts in California.

In an interview, Cirko says that since bags were only banned in large supermarkets and pharmacies, they could get mixed with traditional plastic bags and contaminate the recycling stream. "They killed recycling of bags in their city," she says.

Bans, taxes or using a reusable bags for shopping won't reduce the consumption of plastic bags, she insists, "because they play a very essential role.

"What people don't realize is that people use plastic bags because they find them terribly convenient," Cirko argues. "We've done polling to show nine out of 10 people reuse their bags, for kitchen catchers, to clean up after their pets and so on. People forget what bags provide. They're very hygienic."

So the industry supports recycling, but what's not mentioned is that San Franciscans were recycling only 1 per cent of their plastic bags, according to that city. Bag recycling is available in half of Ontario, Cirko points out. But even in Peterborough, the first city in Canada to adopt a program, the bag-recycling rate is just 22 per cent.

Toronto councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, chair of the public works committee, says most people have many more plastic bags than ever get reused or recycled. "I have literally hundreds of extra plastic bags that seem to grow and multiply in my closet!" he says.

The plastic industry has said bag reduction experiments have failed. Ireland may have reduced plastic shopping bag consumption by 90 per cent, but plastic going into landfills has actually increased because people are now buying kitchen garbage bags made of heavier plastic rather than re-using their lighter grocery bags for garbage, as they once did.

Cirko also claims that Taiwan has lifted its sweeping plastic bag ban after finding it didn't work. However, it cancelled only the 5-year-old ban for small restaurants, where the rule didn't deter bag use. It remains and, according to published reports, is working for all other stores, malls and supermarkets.

De Baeremaeker responds to Cirko's arguments by saying, "Go tell fairy tales to someone else." Any visitor to Ireland will find that consumers there "aren't using plastic bags."