Heather Latter
Customers at the Clover Valley Farmers’ Market on Saturday didn’t have to carry home their goods in plastic bags.
Instead, each received a reusable bag along with their purchase through a promotion by the Town of Fort Frances called “Saving Our Plant One Bag at a Time.”
Environmental and Facilities superintendent Doug Herr indicated they want people to be aware of the harm plastic bags cause the environment.
“Every piece of plastic ever made still exists,” he said, citing single use plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to break down.
The town had received a $5,000 grant from Waste Diversion Ontario (Continuous Improvement Fund) last year for Blue Box Promotion and Education, which they used to purchase 250 reusable bags for the promotion.
The Town of Fort Frances “Reduce,” “Reuse,” “Recycle” bags were distributed to the different vendors at the local farmers’ market, who in turn used the reusable bags for each customers’ purchase that day.
Herr noted some vendors took a bit of time to adjust to using the cloth bags, reaching for their plastic bags out of habit.
“It’s a habit we should break,” he stressed.
But market manager Deb Cornell indicated there was plenty of positive feedback from the promotion,
“People were really pleased to received the bags,” she voiced, citing they were distributed quite quickly by most of the vendors.
“It was very well received,” she added. “It was great to see.”
The reusable bags also contained a sheet with interesting facts about plastic bags, such as “Canadians use 9 to 15 billion plastic shopping bags every year. If we tied 9-billion bags together they would circle the earth 55 times.”
The sheet also noted that plastic bags kill birds, wildlife, and livestock and they also block drains, which leads to flooding.
Cornell noted farmers’ markets in Kenora and Sioux Lookout also have handed out reusable bags to their customers.
In fact, Sioux Lookout has gone as far as imposing a community-wide ban on plastic bags through a town bylaw which prohibits the sale or free distribution of plastic bags within the municipality.
The Town of Fort Frances has also used its WDO grant money for two previous projects.
They included information brochures and a recycling magnet along with the refuse schedules when they were distributed in December.
The brochures outlined what is acceptable to put in your “blue box” as well as tips like where you can recycle plastic bags and turn in tires, and relevant dates, like the annual Municipal Hazardous and Special Waste Day, which was held here Saturday.
The second project was a poster/slogan contest offered in the schools to raise awareness about recycling.
Water bottles and recycling books were handed out to participating students last spring—and the posters were on display on Saturday at the local farmers’ market.
With only a small amount of the $5,000 remaining, the town is looking at one more recycling promotion this year.
