Earlier this month Toronto became the first city in Canada to officially ban plastic bags. Toronto joins other American cities including Seattle and Los Angeles who already have plastic bag bans in act, as do Ireland and Germany.

The news in Toronto was met with quite a bit of East Coast disgruntlement and the rest of Canada, in particular wondered together “ is my city next?”.

To be honest, we were shocked that Vancouver didn’t beat Toronto to the bag ban punch. With our bike-lane-loving Mayor arguable the greenest focused Mayor across the country many believe Vancouver is next in line to ban the now enemy number one little white bags. The Globe and Mail noted comment in an article about the bag ban that B.C. Premier Christy Clark is talking to the city about the issue, but that it would be complicated to ban bags.

Just how many bags are there in circulation? Is it really an environmental problem? This image below represents how many plastic shopping bags we use each year.

Each icon represents 10 MILLION. That’s 2.86-billion bags used annually in Canada – 200 for every one of us!

Green Coast Rubbish stands behind the trend to get to a point where we use only reusable bags for our groceries, errands, etc. Banning plastic bags will also encourage consumers to further recycling and composting habits and all around decrease our waste in landfills. We want to hear what you think? Head to our Facebook and Twitter page and let us know your thoughts. Yah or Nah to plastic bags one day being banned in Vancouver? What say you Green Coast Rubbish fans?