Demand for single-use plastics is destroying our environment, harming our health and exacerbating waste and recycling issues in Toronto. I strongly urge you, as my elected representative, to BAN all significant single-use plastics as determined as a first step by City of Toronto consultations.

I urge you to immediately ban all items the City determined to be of high and medium priority in its commissioned report, Technical Memorandum No.1 - Single-use and Takeaway Reduction Strategies:

• Plastic bags (all weights and types including produce bags) 
• Cold cups and lids
• Plastic bottles and caps and plastic liners in metal caps
• Plastic cutlery
• Single-use EPS (expanded polystyrene styrofoam)*, which includes containers, plates, hot/cold cups, trays, cutlery, foam egg cartons, containers for raw meat/seafood, cups 2oz or less, long-handled polystyrene spoons, and food prepackaged in polystyrene foam, packaging peanuts)
• Plastic food containers
• Hot cups and lids (take-out coffee cups not only have plastic liners but "...estimates suggest that Canadians use between 1.6 and 2 billion disposable coffee cups a year. These represent up to 35,000 tonnes of paper, made from more than 70,000 tonnes of raw wood, harvested from thousands of hectares of forest.” Canadian Geographic. Canada's Dirty Secret.
• Black plastic
• Condiment packets

In addition the City should prohibit and enforce a ban on the items below.  Not only have StopPlastics’ volunteers found these by the hundreds in clean-ups but they are also on the watch list of the Strategy Matters study.

• Cigarette filters and cigarette packaging
• Cotton bud sticks
• Wet wipes                                                                                     
• Bubble wrap
• Bread tags
• Balloons and balloon sticks

and,

• Cigarillo tips, vaping devices and marijuana paraphernalia, as well as dental floss holders (although not on the Strategy Matters’ list, a new huge concern).

If the City of Toronto is committed to zero waste and reducing the effects of single-use and takeaway items on our environment, Toronto MUST say NO to destructive single-use plastics NOW, regardless of the actions of the provincial and federal governments.

Banning single-use plastic is step #1, a starting point.  Step #2.  We must set our sights on banning “disposable” plastic next.   Step #3.  We must tackle all non-essential plastics.  

I look forward to IMMEDIATE BANS on unnecessary single-use plastics!