HALIFAX -- The plastic grocery bag is on the way out.
Some provinces have banned them – or announced a ban – and, by the end of the month, they'll no longer be available at any Sobeys checkout line.
From lining boots, to carrying garbage, many depend on the plastic bags for more than just shopping.
“I made a real stockpile of those plastic bags because I knew what was coming,” says one Halifax resident to CTV. “I use my bags for cat litter and my garbage.”
Kate Pepler is the owner of a zero-waste store in Halifax and has never offered plastic bags at her shop.
Pepler says using compostable paper is an easy alternative to plastic bags, especially if what’s recyclable and compostable is separated from what’s trash.
"What you can also do is make a (paper) liner very, very easily," Pepler says. "It takes under five minutes, probably under a minute to make a liner out of newspaper that you line your bins with instead of using plastic bags."
If you're thinking a compost-friendly plastic bag is the way to go, you might want to think again.
"The compostable plastics are not compostable in the HRM facilities, and if you're not in the HRM, maybe check with your own municipality. But they are not compostable here,” says Pepler. “They actually get into our composting facility, contaminate the waste, they can also clog up the machines.”
Businesses stopped handing out single use plastic bags on Prince Edward Island in July 2019. The same policy will begin across Nova Scotia later this fall.
