The City of Victoria is a step closer to reducing the number of single-use cups and other materials littering the city after staff were directed to start drafting a bylaw that could require businesses to change their handling practices.
Council approved a motion to draft regulations that could mean businesses distribute single-use straws and utensils only when requested, use reusable products for food and beverages consumed on the premises and charge 25 cents for any single-use, take-out cup or container.
The bylaw will also see staff monitor the effect of a fee on single-use items to determine if more needs to be done to stimulate waste reduction and craft an engagement strategy to support local businesses in the transition.
City staff will report back in 12 months on the feasibility of implementing a regulation requiring businesses to participate in a reusable cup and container program.
The bylaw is expected back at council in the summer for approval, and will require the province to sign off on it.
Though there was lengthy debate over the proposed bylaw and how it would be implemented, council passed the motion unanimously.
Some councillors were concerned about the cost to business, the effect on low-income residents and the marginalized population given the potential for added costs, and what some considered very little engagement with the business community.
The Diverters Foundation and Our Place Society, while in favour of the effort to reduce waste, wanted the city to stop looking into putting fees on recyclable single-use cups.
“The low and no-income members of our community would be the most severely impacted by the imposition of an additional fee of 25 cents on single-use cups,” they wrote in a letter to council.
The organizations suggested there is little data to support the effectiveness of a fee, citing the city’s own survey that only 29 per cent of people would be motivated by the 25-cent charge. They also had concerns about the lack of a plan to divert waste.
The groups called for more consultation with the low and no-income communities, and an effective strategy to divert recyclable single-use cup waste from the waste stream.
According to a staff report, Victoria residents throw away about 75,000 single-use items every day.
The city collects about five million single-use items every year through its curbside waste collection service, and another nine million from city garbage cans on sidewalks.
The most common item found in the public garbage is the cup, which is tossed away at a rate of 13,000 a day, while 6,300 containers find the garbage pail along with 5,800 straws.
Victoria aims to reduce waste across the community by 50 per cent by 2040 and sees eliminating single-use items and establishing reusable products as the default packaging option throughout the community as a means of getting there.
