Developing a Single-Use Item Reduction Strategy

October 2023 update

Federal and provincial regulations that reduce the distribution and use of single-use items come into effect in December.

Provincial regulations

Federal regulations

The District is advancing its single-use item reduction objectives by supporting local businesses in understanding and adapting to these regulatory changes.

Specifically, the District sponsored a free, Zero-waste Coaching for Small Businesses program in partnership with the District and City of North Vancouver and Ocean Ambassadors Canada that provided local businesses with support on how to reduce single-use items, how to improve recycling and compost practices, and other zero-waste tips and tricks. Nearly 20 West Vancouver businesses participated in the program.

For more information about single-use items in West Vancouver, please visit: westvancouver.ca/single-use

Background

Prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the District started collecting input on a Single-Use Item Reduction Strategy in response to Council’s Strategic Objective to reduce community and corporate waste by developing local policy or regulations to encourage the reduction of single-use items.

Report to Council presented on September 9, 2019

Report to Council presented on May 30, 2022

Recognizing that COVID-19 response created new and unexpected challenges for everyone, the District made the decision to postpone the development of this strategy. Thank you to all the businesses that participated in this initial consultation.

To avoid creating additional complexity for local businesses, the District is deferring local regulation until provincial and federal regulations have been fully implemented. There will be other opportunities to provide feedback before the District moves forward with any regulatory steps

Phase 1: Gathering information from businesses (fall 2019)

We started the conversation with local businesses and business associations to hear their input and ideas and hear concerns and aspirations on the topic of single-use items.

The District does not provide waste collection service for commercial properties and therefore has limited access to information about how businesses currently manage their waste/recycling.

Through the first phase of consultation, we were able to gather information from businesses to learn

• if businesses are using single-use items and which items they are using
• the current challenges and opportunities businesses experience when using single-use items
• the ideas businesses have already initiated for reducing waste and single-use items

Thank you to all of the business owners and operators that completed the survey.

Definition of single-use items

Single-use items are designed to be used once for a short period of time and then discarded.

Single-use items include:

• takeout containers, including polystyrene foam containers;
• plastic and paper shopping bags;
• coffee and drink cups, including polystyrene foam cups; and
• drink cup lids

Other single-use items include:

• plastic straws;
• stir sticks; and
• single-use cutlery or chopsticks

Although there are many other types of single-use items, from balloons and cigarette butts to disposable pedicure flip-flops, the above items were the focus of our engagement.