Students want plastic bags banned

The Grade 5 class at J.W. Walker School is hoping to have a voluntary plastic bag ban in all commercial stores across Rainy River District.
Students from Mrs. Sharla MacKinnon’s class put together a Power Point presentation and invited managers from grocery stores in town and Emo to attend.
“We can make a difference in our small town by trying to reduce the amount of plastic bags and from there we could go and maybe the businesses will try not to have as many,” said Katelyn Svoboda, a Grade 5 student.
MacKinnon explained that the students worked very hard to put the presentation together and did all of the research by themselves.
With the assistance of Angela Petsnick, another teacher and leader of the Environmental Club at J.W. Walker, students called up industry leaders to inform them of their presentation.
“We just watched this video [Battle of the Bag] as an activity we did one day and it’s really what spurred this whole presentation,” Petsnick said.
“I didn’t mean for all this to happen. The kids were just so passionate about it and they stood up and said, ‘We need to do something,’ so this is what they did,” she continued.
The first step in their plan to eliminate plastic bags is implementing a plastic bag charge. The students hope this will raise the awareness of consumers and make them think about their plastic bag use. They believe this will encourage people to use reusable bags.
The second step in their plan is to phase out plastic bags completely by taking them out of stores. They believe people will start to phase out the plastic bag on their own, making the transition to eliminate plastic bags that much easier.
“If you implement a per bag charge, what could be done with the money? This per bag charge could be given back to the earth. We would like to share this money with the rest of the community by planting trees in schools, parks and green spaces,” said Grade 5 student Tristen Badiuk during the presentation.
By eliminating plastic bag costs, the students figure that the country’s non-renewable oil would be saved, and businesses would reduce their environmental impact.
The students encouraged the businesses on hand to become role models for other businesses by implementing changes.
“We can save the earth, one bag at a time. Be a team player, join us and reduce plastic bag use. I am the problem, I am the solution,” enthused the entire class.
Mark Loney, owner of Clover Leaf Grocery in Emo, has already taken numerous steps to become more environmentally friendly.
“Instead of charging people for bags, we’re going to give them a discount when they use reusable bags,” Loney said.
He believes the problem is that people have come to expect that plastic bags will be available for customers when they buy groceries.
“We find it’s easier to sell the bags, but it’s harder to make people use them. We figure if we give them a reward for using them, then they’ll be more likely to use them,” Loney explained.
Clover Leaf Grocery has 100 percent biodegradable plastic bags and also tries to reuse boxes they receive instead of bags whenever possible.
Loney notes that despite the notion that paper bags are better for the environment, paper isn’t more environmentally friendly than plastic.
“Paper is very expensive and it uses a lot of hydrocarbons to make it . . . We offer paper in the store, but for instance, these plastic bags cost two cents, whereas a paper bag costs 10 cents,” he said.
Other businesses that have encouraged the use of reusable bags include The Place Fine Foods and Pharmasave. The Place gives customers two cents off their grocery bill for using reusable bags, while Pharmasave donates 10 cents to the Fort Frances Public Library “Building for the Future” campaign every time someone declines the use of a plastic bag.
The students were all very optimistic about the feasibility of banning plastic bags.
“We’re kids so we can probably persuade our parents to use the reusable ones and not the plastic bags,” said student Savannah Fortner.
For the students, the most important message they wanted to bring across was to build awareness in businesses. They emphasized the importance of getting rid of plastic bags was not only because they are terrible for the environment, but also because they kill animals that ingest them or get caught in them.