THE City of Surrey says it has led the way on many green initiatives within the Metro region and is now taking action to address the negative impacts of disposable plastic shopping bags and foam takeout containers. With the bylaw approval on Friday by the provincial government, the City of Surrey will start finalizing its plan to ban plastic checkout bags, foam cups and takeout containers.

“Today’s bylaw approval by the province paves the way for Surrey to put into place a city-wide ban to eliminate single-use plastic shopping bags and foam cups and containers as soon as possible,” said Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum. “As we work our way through the pandemic, City Council has not lost sight of the importance of our environment. That is why we are placing such a top priority on initiatives such as a plastic bag and foam food container ban for our City. It’s a simple and effective way for us to curb our waste and make a positive environmental impact on Surrey.”

The use of disposable and non-compostable items result in increased:

• energy and resource consumption
• litter and illegal dumping
• costs to collect from public spaces
• landfill waste

“We all want to do our part to help our environment and reducing the number of plastic bags and foam containers that end up in landfills is something that we can all easily do,” said Councillor Allison Patton, Chair of the Agriculture, Environment and Investment Committee. “As we move toward a city-wide ban of these items, I want to thank the Surrey businesses which have already taken the initiative to do away with single-use plastic shopping bags and foam takeout containers.”