Background
Single-use item reduction is a priority across the region and many local governments are taking action to reduce these items. Several factors are driving action:
- Costs taxpayers millions annually to collect from public spaces
- Prevalent in marine litter
- Not commonly recycled or reused
Metro Vancouver wrote the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing in support of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities’ resolution requesting a provincial single-use strategy (link provided in Resources below).
Regional harmonization of single-use item reduction bylaws
Single-use item toolkit
Metro Vancouver developed a Single-Use Item Toolkit to provide local governments with single-use item reduction resources and best practices to support them in their initiatives. This resource provides information on a range of policy options for local governments in Metro Vancouver to consider in the development of their own approaches. The toolkit focuses on priority single-use items identified by the Metro Vancouver Board, including, bags, cups, takeout containers, straws and utensils. Additional resources, including a jurisdictional scan and an annotated bibliography of leading research are available below.