Ban of single-use plastic bags, fee for disposable cups now in effect in Vancouver
New bylaws for single-use items are now in effect in the City of Vancouver.
As of Jan. 1, businesses are now banned from using single-use plastic and compostable plastic shopping bags, and must charge a minimum fee of 15 cents for paper bags, which increases to 25 cents in 2023.
To avoid paying fees, customers can bring their own reusable bags.
The new rules were supposed to come into effect in 2021, but they were pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"As a coastal city, it's important to Vancouver to reduce the amount of plastic pollution," City of Vancouver Senior Project Manager Monica Kosmak told CTV News in December.
Your next coffee run may also be a little more expensive, as disposable cups will now come with price of $0.25.
In 2018, the City of Vancouver reported about 89 million plastic shopping bags were discarded, along with 80 million single-use cups.
The owner of a Vancouver grocery store, Famous Foods, is not anticipating the new rules will cause issues.
"Certainly people in our store will be in favour of this and we are too," Cam Bruce said.
Bruce says a large number of his customers already bring their own reusable bags.
Last July, the provincial government made it legal for local governments to ban single-use plastics without requiring ministerial approval.
“More than 20 municipalities in B.C. are developing bylaws banning single-use plastics. Under the previous regulation, bylaws were approved for the municipalities of Esquimalt, Nanaimo, Richmond, Rossland, Saanich, Surrey, Tofino, Ucluelet and Victoria,” the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy said in a release.
The federal government is also expected to release its new regulations on single-use plastic items sometime in 2022.
With files from CTV News Vancouver's Ross McLaughlin
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Quake deaths pass 5,000 as Turkiye, Syria seek survivors
Rescuers raced Tuesday to find survivors in the rubble of thousands of buildings brought down by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake and multiple aftershocks that struck eastern Turkiye and neighboring Syria, with the discovery of more bodies raising the death toll to more than 5,000.

Will Biden's second state of the union mark a less protectionist approach to Canada?
A new poll suggests a majority of Canadians still see the United States as their country's closest ally, even in an age of isolationism and protectionist policies.
Thieves cut huge hole in Ottawa restaurant wall to get at jewelry store next door
An Ottawa restaurateur says he was shocked to find his restaurant broken into and even more surprised to discover a giant hole in the wall that led to the neighbouring jewelry store.
New details emerge ahead of Trudeau-premiers' health-care meeting
As preparations are underway for the anticipated health-care 'working meeting' between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Canada's premiers on Tuesday, new details are emerging about how the much-anticipated federal-provincial gathering will unfold.
China says will 'safeguard interests' over balloon shootdown
China said Tuesday it will 'resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests' over the shooting down of a suspected Chinese spy balloon by the United States, as relations between the two countries deteriorate further. The balloon prompted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a highly-anticipated visit to Beijing this week that had offered slight hopes for an improvement in relations.
Mendicino: foreign-agent registry would need equity lens, could be part of 'tool box'
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino says a registry to track foreign agents operating in Canada can only be implemented in lockstep with diverse communities.
Quebec minister 'surprised' asylum seekers given free bus tickets from New York City
Quebec's immigration minister says she was 'surprised' to learn the City of New York is helping to provide free bus tickets to migrants heading north to claim asylum in Canada.
Vaccine intake higher among people who knew someone who died of COVID-19: U.S. survey
A U.S. survey found that people who had a personal connection to someone who became ill or died of COVID-19 were more likely to have received at least one shot of the vaccine compared to those who didn’t have any loved ones who had been impacted by the disease.
opinion | Don Martin: Alarms going off over health-care privatization? Such an out-of-touch waste of hot political air
The chances Trudeau's health-care summit with the premiers will end with the blueprint to realistic long-term improvements are only marginally better than believing China’s balloon was simply collecting atmospheric temperatures, Don Martin writes in an exclusive column for CTVNews.ca, 'But it’s clearly time the 50-year-old dream of medicare as a Canadian birthright stopped being such a nightmare for so many patients.'