The food court at Wyckham House within the Student Association of Mount Royal University (SAMRU) is beginning to fill with people who are looking to satisfy their hunger. It’s almost lunchtime and there are 13 vendors within the area. Some include Subway, Dairy Queen, and Good Earth.
The recent Single-Use Items bylaw enacted on Jan. 16 requires businesses to charge a minimum fee for paper and reusable bags, as well as provide single-use food accessories by request only.
Some employees at the food court vendors declined an interview on the new bylaw, while some customers seemed confused about the details.
“I am aware of the bylaw, but after it was promoted on TV, I didn’t hear much about it afterwards,” said Gurleen Jassal, a student at MRU.
Gordy Ha, another customer, said, “On the radio, I’ve heard business owners complaining now that you have to actually ask for a fork or plastic spoon when it’s kind of a given thing that comes with buying a product.
The City of Calgary council passed the Single-Use Items Bylaw to help reduce items designed to be used only once and then thrown away. This includes accessories such as utensils, napkins, and pre-packaged condiments.
The goal is to eliminate unnecessary items and replace them with reusable options.
Two weeks after the bylaw came into effect Ward 2, Coun. Jennifer Wyness introduced a notice of motion to consider a repeal. Her motion received a 10-5 vote to begin the process.
“Since this file hit my desk, I saw the challenges in it. We’ve seen this bylaw enacted in Vancouver. They had more time to prove this legislation would work…I’m disappointed Vancouver didn’t put out a quarterly report to say we’ve seen ‘this much’ reduction,” said Wyness.
The Single-Use Items Reduction Strategy states that the City of Calgary bylaw supports the recent environment and climate strategies. The shift also aligns with the timing of the federal single-use plastic ban that prohibits the manufacture, import and single-use of plastics such as bags, cutlery, and straws (with exemptions to ensure accessibility).
“The communication around this bylaw wasn’t the greatest because it’s a single-use compostable bylaw – everything it applies to is based on paper products – a lot of the assumption was while the feds banned plastics, therefore this doesn’t apply to me,” said Wyness.
Although Coun. Wyness supports reduction, reuse, recycle and recovery, she’d like to see a more comprehensible transition like informing businesses to educate customers first, changes to the city’s waste management infrastructure and eliminating the ability to profit off a policy.
“Some businesses profit from this bylaw — there is no ability for the municipal government to say, ‘Hey I’ve created this revenue stream, you must invest in waste reduction strategies.’ The purpose and intent are to have a penalty of a fee that will change behaviour—increasing the initial fee will just normalize over time and absorb into the cost of daily life,” said Wyness.
The city’s reduction strategy states Calgarians care about waste reduction. Preliminary engagement, surveys, interviews and workshops with residents and businesses from 2018 – 2024 indicated wanting to live in a city that is a leader in environment and sustainability:
- 81 per cent agreed it is important for the city to take an active role in enabling waste reduction.
- 75 per cent said single-use items are harmful for the environment.
- Nine in ten (87 per cent) said they “take their own shopping bags to the grocery store” always (57 per cent) or most of the time (30 per cent).
‘This is just a very small part of a larger strategic play’
Ward 9, Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra supports the single-use items bylaw. Although he recognizes there need to be some changes, he says it is a decent and tentative step recommended by experts towards reducing the mountains of waste that is also in line with federal law.
“We’re adjusting bylaws all the time to make them better reflect their intent and the reality of the situation. I don’t generally jump when third-party organizers pump a lot of misinformation and anger into the system,” said Carra.
Out of the 100 emails he received regarding the bylaw, he says only three were non-offensive in their language and tone. Most emails rejected the enactment while making claims that they refused to be socially engineered and that climate change doesn’t exist, he said.
“There are third-party organizations like Save Calgary and Common Sense Calgary who are laser focused on trying to curate a particular mindset in elected officials and in the voting public to achieve their political ends – this is just a very small part of a larger strategic play,” said Carra.
A statement to the Calgary Journal sent by the executive director of Common Sense Calgary (CSC) said some councillors seem to favour citizens who agree with them and limit public input to those who disagree.
“We’re proud to have brought attention to the stupidity of the City’s single-use plastics bylaw and helped Calgarians reach out to their elected representatives,” said Kristy Koehler.
Koehler said one of the goals at Common Sense Calgary is to keep people informed about what’s happening at city hall and help citizens engage in the democratic process.
“It’s disappointing that Coun. Carra is upset about receiving emails and phone calls, and having to actually listen to the people he’s supposed to represent. But that’s called democracy, and it’s the job he signed up for,” said Koehler.
In previous news stories reported by CBC, an unknown political organization called Save Calgary had been soliciting donations and running advertisements on downtown billboards in a bid to unseat five members of the Calgary city council in 2017. Save Calgary’s website is no longer active.
Although some customers at the Wyckham House food court would like some changes within the bylaw, they told the Calgary Journal they were interested in reducing waste.
“Well, I think like anything, it’s just a change of behaviour. We’re used to getting it in a bag. It was like that with groceries. So, I mean I’m okay adapting to a new regulation if it’s going to help with waste,” said Lori Bland.
“It’s putting a little extra on the end of my tab right now. Maybe putting some incentives into making compostable or biodegradable single-use stuff. It would be nice if they didn’t make me pay. Maybe if businesses pay a bit more, then they wouldn’t want to use, say plastics,” said William Bradbury.
The repeal process is expected to be discussed at a public hearing meeting of the council on May 7, 2024.