Page 16 March 16,2009 ~=PROVINCIAL/ NATIONAL

PANTHER POST

Extended producer responsibility more important than — banning plastic bags: Jardine Islanders gradually moving towards cloth bags for shopping

that harmful, the director of pollution prevention for the Department of Environment, many packaged products From an environmental per- Energy, and Forestry says~ with mixed plastics.

spective, plastic bags aren’t Don Jardine said although “Plastic bags are just the tip

By Leslie Keeping they can be recycled, unlike

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Voting Period March 17th & 18th

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plastic bags are harmful, of the iceberg.” Islanders are already taking action to limit the number of plastic bags. Sharon Labchuk,

leader of P.E.I’s Green party, said she’s amazed at the number of people she sees using cloth bags in grocery stores.

“It is improving, I’ve noticed an improvement in the last six months.”

But she says there’s still lots of room for im- provement though, and says people’s good in- tentions aren’t enough. ~

“I think the province should ban them.”

Jardine said the big- ger problem lies with packaging in products, he said it should be up to the producer of the products to take respon- sibility for it.

The Canadian Wireless Technology Association is already taking action to deal with the trash their products produce.

It describes itself as an au-

thority on wireless issues,

developments and trends in Canada.

On Jan. 20, the CWTA an- nounced it was launching the Recycle My Cell program, a free program organized by the association and other cellphone providers to allow people to easily recycle old cellphones.

Initiatives like this need to be taken by other producers — to deal with the trash their products produce, Jardine | said.

“That’s an organization that takes responsibility for its product.”

There are plenty of pro- grams in place to deal with plastic bags, but there is no legislation in place to ban them, or charge consumers

- for using them, he said. - However, he suspects P.E.I.

will see a law passed on plastic bags within the next year. — Keeping is a journalism student at Holland College —

Bat peta elem Net bele

~“T think the province should ban them.”