Municipalities Empowered to Ban Single-Use Plastics

Municipalities throughout the province can now move more quickly to prevent plastics from polluting their communities.

Under new rules, local governments can institute bans on plastic bags and certain single-use plastics without provincial approval.

The Province has amended a regulation under the Community Charter to allow local governments to ban single-use plastics, including plastic checkout bags, polystyrene foam containers and plastic utensils, which includes stir sticks. Previously, municipalities required ministerial approval to implement a plastics ban.

More than 20 municipalities in B.C. are developing bylaws banning single-use plastics. Under the previous regulation, bylaws were approved for the municipalities of Esquimalt, Nanaimo, Richmond, Rossland, Saanich, Surrey, Tofino, Ucluelet and Victoria.

This change is one part of the CleanBC Plastics Action Plan. The Province is also expanding the number of products to be recycled through residential recycling programs by adding milk and milk-alternative containers to the deposit-refund system effective February 2022, and more single-use items to the packaging part of the Recycling Regulation effective January 2023. It is also piloting new projects to use reclaimed plastic waste in new manufacturing through the CleanBC Plastics Action Fund.

Since last year, more than 127 tonnes of plastic have been removed from B.C.’s coastline under the Clean Coast, Clean Waters initiative. It is estimated that in 2019, more than 340,000 tonnes of plastic items and packaging were disposed of in British Columbia. This equates to more than 65 kilograms of plastic waste landfilled per person in one year.